Dr Butler provides a new interpretation of the cristero war (1926-29) which divided Mexico's peasantry into rival camps loyal to the Catholic Church (cristero) or the Revolution (agrarista). This book puts religion at the heart of our understanding of the revolt by showing how peasant allegiances often resulted from genuinely popular cultural and religious antagonisms. It challenges the assumption that Mexican peasants in the 1920s shared religious outlooks and that their behaviour was mainly driven by political and material factors. Focusing on the state of Michoacán in western-central Mexico, the volume seeks to integrate both cultural and structural lines of inquiry.
First charting the uneven character of Michoacán's historical formation in the late colonial period and the nineteenth century, Dr Butler shows how the emergence of distinct agrarian regimes and political cultures was later associated with varying popular responses to post-revolutionary state formation in the areas of educational and agrarian reform. At the same time, it is argued that these structural trends were accompanied by increasingly clear divergences in popular religious cultures, including lay attitudes to the clergy, patterns of religious devotion and deviancy, levels of sacramental participation, and commitment to militant 'social' Catholicism. As peasants in different communities developed distinct parish identities, so the institutional conflict between Church and state acquired diverse meanings and provoked violently contradictory popular responses. Thus the fires of revolt burned all the more fiercely because they inflamed a countryside which - then as now - was deeply divided in matters of faith as well as politics.
Based on oral testimonies and careful searches of dozens of ecclesiastical and state archives, this study makes an important contribution to the religious history of the Mexican Revolution.
| ISBN: | 9780197262986 |
| Publication date: | 17th June 2004 |
| Author: | Matthew Butler, British Academy |
| Publisher: | The British Academy an imprint of Liverpool University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 251 pages |
| Series: | A British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship Monograph |
| Genres: |
History of the Americas Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic Church |
Dr Butler provides a new interpretation of the cristero war (1926-29) which divided Mexico's peasantry into rival camps loyal to the Catholic Church (cristero) or the Revolution (agrarista). This book puts religion at the heart of our understanding of the revolt by showing how peasant allegiances often resulted from genuinely popular cultural and religious antagonisms. It challenges the assumption that Mexican peasants in the 1920s shared religious outlooks and that their behaviour was mainly driven by political and material factors. Focusing on the state of Michoacán in western-central Mexico, the volume seeks to integrate both cultural and structural lines of inquiry.
First charting the uneven character of Michoacán's historical formation in the late colonial period and the nineteenth century, Dr Butler shows how the emergence of distinct agrarian regimes and political cultures was later associated with varying popular responses to post-revolutionary state formation in the areas of educational and agrarian reform. At the same time, it is argued that these structural trends were accompanied by increasingly clear divergences in popular religious cultures, including lay attitudes to the clergy, patterns of religious devotion and deviancy, levels of sacramental participation, and commitment to militant 'social' Catholicism. As peasants in different communities developed distinct parish identities, so the institutional conflict between Church and state acquired diverse meanings and provoked violently contradictory popular responses. Thus the fires of revolt burned all the more fiercely because they inflamed a countryside which - then as now - was deeply divided in matters of faith as well as politics.
Based on oral testimonies and careful searches of dozens of ecclesiastical and state archives, this study makes an important contribution to the religious history of the Mexican Revolution.
Popular Piety and Political Identity in Mexico's Cristero Rebellion features in the following genres: History of the Americas, Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic Church
Popular Piety and Political Identity in Mexico's Cristero Rebellion is available in Hardback
Popular Piety and Political Identity in Mexico's Cristero Rebellion was written by Matthew Butler, British Academy and published by The British Academy an imprint of Liverpool University Press
Popular Piety and Political Identity in Mexico's Cristero Rebellion has 251 pages
Yes it is part of A British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship Monograph series
£60.00