Holy Saints and Fiery Preachers ― The Anthropology of Protestantism in Mexico and Central America

Based on empirical analysis, this enthnographic fieldwork and collection of original articles on contemporary Protestant religions in Mexico and Central America examines regions ranging from the Pacific coast in the north to Guatemala in the south. These new studies reveal that Protestantism was on the rise in the last decades of the twentieth century because it was opposing political structures that were largely unworkable in a new age of economic expansion and population growth. Relying on traditional scientific principles of data recording and theory development, the contributors look into the lives of contemporary rural people, Indian mestizo, and provide data that enhances the general study of modern religious movements.

JAMES W. DOW is Professor of Anthropology at Oakland University. His recent publications includeThe Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Volume 8: Middle America and the Caribbean,Class, Politics, and Popular Religion in Mexico and Central America, and The Shaman's Touch: Otomi Indian Symbolic Healing. He is widely published in major academic journals.

ALAN R. SANDSTROM is professor of Anthropology at Indiana University-Purdue University, Fort Wayne. His major publications includeCorn is Our Blood: Culture and Ethnic Identity in a Contemporary Aztec Indian Village andTraditional Papermaking and Paper Cult Figures of Mexico. He is widely published in major journals and was recently a guest of the Mexican Academy of the Sciences for their Visiting Distinguished Professor Program.