Catholicism in the Second Spanish Republic : religion and politics in Salamanca, 1930-1936
The research for this thesis has been confined in space and time in order to facilitate an investigation of the Church at several levels: the study is as concerned with the faith and the faithful as with the official presence of the hierarchy. It examines questions of religious identity in an area of high Catholic practice, conservative politics and, eventually, genuine popular support for the Nationalist rising. The province of Salamanca, in the north west of Spain, is a particularly appropriate focus for such a study. Part of the Castilian heartland of traditional Spain, it was the home province of Jose Maria Gil Robles and a major area of strength for the parliamentary Catholic right, which mobilised here before anywhere else in Spain. This has led to Salamanca receiving some attention from historians. Scholars such as Paul Preston and Juan Jose Castillo use it to provide examples of the Catholic right's techniques and rhetoric, arguing that the innate conservatism of the Castilian smallholders was manipulated by the great landlords. However, perhaps the most interesting feature of the history of the province in the 1930s is how its story differed from that laid out in Madrid. The historiography of the Second Republic has concentrated - perhaps inevitably - on political and parliamentary struggles. While issues such as disestablishment and the fate of the religious orders were of crucial importance at institutional and governmental level, the impact they had outside the professional circles of church and state is far less certain. This study has moved outside the administrative world of the capital to investigate the impact of the Republic on ordinary Catholic citizens. The minutiae of church/ state relations and the undoubted injustice of the treatment of the religious orders may have outraged the Catholic deputies representing Salamanca in the Cortes, but their Catholic constituents had different concerns. By examining these concerns, this thesis throws new light on the process of breakdown of the Second Republic.
Sons of Adam, Daughters of Eve: The Peasant Worldview of the Alto Minho
Altering economic conditions and widespread male emigration have led to a questioning of the values of peasant society in Portugal. This perceptive study of a society in transition looks at the issues of gender roles (reflected in the book's title), the notions of community and egalitarianism, religion, and burial and death rites. The author argues that, while the peasant worldview is changing, many of the old values are being preserved.
Medjugorje: Religion, Politics, and Violence in Rural Bosnia
Medjugorje, fifteen years ago an out-of-the-way peasant village in Bosnia Hercegovina, is today a Marian devotion centre of global repute. Based on some ten years of fieldwork in the region, the author gives a detailed account of that transformation process, in which religion, politics and violence are closely intertwined. Adopting a long-term historical approach the description also open up surprisingly new perspectives on today's problems and atrocities in Bosnia Hercegovina.