The Cambridge History of Religions in Latin America, ed. Virginia Garrard-Burnett, Paul Freston and Stephen C. Dove

Abstract

The three editors of this outstanding volume on religions in Latin America, Virginia Garrard-Burnett, Paul Freston and Stephen C. Dove, are experts in the field of Latin American studies and represent different disciplines (history, religion and politics) as well as different research areas (Brazil, new Christian movements, Pentecostalism and Protestantism). The diversity of their academic backgrounds is reflected in a volume that includes an impressive range of topics, from religion in the pre-contact worlds and various forms of Christianity, to so-called ‘creolized religions’ which emerged from the collision of European, indigenous and African traditions, religions of immigrants in Latin America and Latin American religions in the diaspora. The authors of the forty-nine chapters, like the editors, approach the topic from different disciplines; in the chapter-writers’ case, mainly history, anthropology and study of religions, but also sociology, political science and theology, which makes this volume an outstanding contribution to Latin American studies, a key text for everyone working on the region. Owing to the largely descriptive nature of most chapters, the book presents valuable information about religions in Latin America past and present which will be useful for students and scholars alike. While the majority of chapters tend to focus on Hispano continental America, there is sufficient material about Brazil and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean islands included in some of the chapters. Only Haiti, though theoretically also part of Latin America, is hardly mentioned, despite its importance for the region.