New Books In Latin American Studies

Bonar L. Hernández Sandoval's Guatemala's Catholic Revolution: A History of Religious and Social Reform, 1920-1968 (U Notre Dame Press, 2018) is an account of the resurgence of Guatemalan Catholicism during the twentieth century. By the late 1960s, an increasing number of Mayan peasants had emerged as religious and social leaders in rural Guatemala. They assumed central roles within the Catholic Church: teaching the catechism, preaching the Gospel, and promoting Church-directed social projects. Influenced by their daily religious and social realities, the development initiatives of the Cold War, and the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), they became part of Latin America's burgeoning progressive Catholic spirit. Hernández Sandoval examines the origins of this progressive trajectory in his fascinating new book. After researching previously untapped church archives in Guatemala and Vatican City, as well as mission records found in the United States, Hernández Sandoval analyzes popular visions of the Church, the