For Christ and Country

Rezensionen / Stimmen

'An illuminating study on the meaning of 'fanaticism' and the best study of cristero activism in Mexico City. In tough, compact prose, Robert Weis tracks the rise and fall of the Mexican 'muscular Christianity' embodied by Jose de Leon Toral, killer of revolutionary strongman, Alvaro Obregon. Toral's gendered, Catholicized, and murderous angst - interpreted as a twentieth-century stoicism - has never felt so vivid or palpable. Weis shows that Toral meant to assassinate not just Mexico's revolution but the female-dominated 'sugar Catholicism' of the jazz age.' Matthew Butler, University of Texas, Austin 'A riveting, compelling, and deeply human analysis of the radical Catholic youth in 1920s Mexico, including the assassin of Mexico's last caudillo, General Alvaro Obregon. Required reading for all those interested in the aftermath and legacy of the Mexican Revolution.' Jurgen Buchenau, University of North Carolina, Charlotte 'While the subtitle Militant Catholic Youth in Post-Revolutionary Mexico is accurate, the interpretive genius of the book is summed up in the wonderful, insightful phrase 'a generation of clumsy terrorists'. This is a must read.' William H. Beezley, University of Arizona '... exemplary ... For Christ and Country is a very useful, important, and engaging contribution to the historiography.' Edward Wright-Rios, Hispanic American Historical Review 'For Christ and Country is an essential book for those who seek to understand the symbolic and ideological repertoire that allows the faithful to violate the "sanctity" of life precisely in the name of the sacred.' Gema Kloppe-Santamaria, Journal Of Ecclesiastical History