Biography of a Mexican Crucifix: Lived Religion and Local Faith from the Conquest to the Present

Biography of a Mexican Crucifix: Lived Religion and Local Faith from the Conquest to the Present by Scheper Hughes, Jennifer. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780195367072.

Hughes uses the long history of popular devotions to a famous crucifix to introduce and explore the most salient religious issues in Mexican history: conquest and mission to the Indians; the birth of an indigenous, syncretic Christianity; the rise of a baroque spirituality and aesthetic; the declining influence of the Catholic religious orders; the sometimes violent processes of independence, nationalization, and secularization; the utopian vision and practice of liberation theology and its institutional dismantling; and finally, the rise of charismatic Catholicism.