New Books about Colonial Catholicism
For those who study the history of Catholicism in early America, these are very happy times. I’ve been waiting years—YEARS PEOPLE!—for two recent publications that will definitely change the way we think about English, French, and Native American Catholicism in colonial America. They are…
Maura Jane Farrelly’s Papist Patriots: The Making of an American Catholic Identity (Oxford University Press 2012) and Tracy Neal Leavelle’s The Catholic Calumet: Colonial Conversions in French and Indian North America (University of Pennsylvania Press 2012)
Christine Leigh Heyrman says, “Maura Farrelly has a fresh and challenging perspective on the Americanization of Roman Catholicism, one that tracks its origins to early Maryland. Papist Patriots bears close reading by all students of American history and religion.”
Colin Calloway says, “With great detail and imagination, Leavelle brings a nuanced approach to conversion as cross-cultural practice, paying balanced attention to missionaries and Indians, analyzing behavior and action, song and speech, rituals and relationships, and considering plural conversions in the context of a volatile colonial world. One of the best studies I have read on the subject.”
Both books are a pleasure to read. They deserve our attention. Thank you Maura and Tracy.
Comments