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Pious Imperialism: Spanish Rule and the Cult of Saints in Mexico City. By Cornelius Conover. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2019. Pp. 296. $65.00 cloth.
Cornelius Conover analyzes the interactions of religion and politics in the early modern Spanish empire. Conover focuses on the cult of saints, particularly the Mexican San Felipe de Jesús, one of the 26 Catholic martyrs of Nagasaki in 1597, and the liturgical calendar around the feasts of saints. He uncovers the Catholic underpinnings that attract the opposing centripetal and centrifugal forces of expansion and political unity of the Spanish empire.
Central to the book is the concept of “pious imperialism,” namely an imperialism based on devotional and liturgical practices that bound local and imperial authorities as well as colonial subjects to a pious Spanish monarch. The author argues that “Catholicism inspired Spanish imperialism, but also bound friars, royal officials, and colonial subjects to the Crown in church services to the millions of subjects in this global empire” (2). Conover's book is solid on archival...