Before Columbus, the Americas were populated by many indigenous cultures, with a great diversity of religions. After 1492, European governments and churches dominated religious life. While Roman Catholicism was the official religion, great religious hybridization occurred, mixing European, indigenous, and often African traditions into distinctly New World forms.

Latin American Religions provides an introduction through documents to the historical development and contemporary expressions of religious life in South and Central America, Mexico, and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. A central feature of this text is its inclusion of both primary and secondary materials, including letters, sermons, journal entries, ritual manuals, and ancient sacred texts. These documents provide readers with direct access to the voices of adherents, enabling them to act as academic investigators, experiencing and interpreting the same texts on which historians draw. The documents are framed by substantive introductions which provide both historical context and theoretical insights for the study of these religions traditions and the ways in which they have developed over time.

From the religious traditions of the Mayas and Aztecs and of the African diaspora, to official and popular Catholicism, to liberation theology, the rise of Pentecostalism, and emerging trends and new religious movements in Latin America, this new work offers a concise overview of this fascinating field.

Cats and Conservationists is the first multidisciplinary analysis of the heated debate about free-roaming cats. The debate pits conservationists against cat lovers, who disagree both on the ecological damage caused by the cats and the best way to manage them. An impassioned and spirited conflict, it also sheds light on larger questions about how we interpret science, incorporate diverse perspectives, and balance competing values in order to encourage constructive dialogue on contentious social and environmental issues.On one side of the cat debate stand many environmentalists, especially birders and conservation organizations, who believe that outdoor cats seriously threaten native wildlife. On the other side are many animal welfare advocates, who believe that outdoor cats generally do not pose a major ecological threat and that it is possible for cats and wildlife to coexist. They believe that it is possible, mainly through trap-neuter-return projects (TNR), to keep free-roaming cat populations in check without killing large numbers of cats. Careful analysis suggests that there remain important questions about the science on both cat predation and TNR effectiveness. Yet both sides of the conflict insist that the evidence is clear-cut. This false certainty contributes to conflict between conservationists and cat lovers, and obscures common goals that could generate constructive discussions and collaborative efforts among scientists, policymakers, conservationists, and animal welfare advocates. Cats and Conservationists aims to facilitate such collaboration in order to manage outdoor cats and minimize the damage they cause. It also offers models for constructive debates about the public role of science in other polarized public conflicts over science and environmental topics.

For most people, animals are the most significant aspects of the nonhuman world. They symbolize nature in our imaginations, in popular media and culture, and in campaigns to preserve wilderness, yet scholars habitually treat animals and the environment as mutually exclusive objects of concern. Conducting the first examination of animals' place in popular and scholarly thinking about nature, Anna L. Peterson builds a nature ethic that conceives of nonhuman animals as active subjects who are simultaneously parts of both nature and human society. Peterson explores the tensions between humans and animals, nature and culture, animals and nature, and domesticity and wildness. She uses our intimate connections with companion animals to examine nature more broadly. Companion animals are liminal creatures straddling the boundary between human society and wilderness, revealing much about the mutually constitutive relationships binding humans and nature together. Through her paradigm-shifting reflections, Peterson disrupts the artificial boundaries between two seemingly distinct categories, underscoring their fluid and continuous character.

By examining the ways that Catholic activists responded to political violence in El Salvador during the 1970s and 1980s, this book documents the beliefs and history of an important religious community, and explores the nature of religion's role in political ideology and mobilization.

Martyrdom and the Politics of Religion explores the ways that Salvadoran Catholics sought to make sense of political violence in their country in the 1970s and 1980s by constructing a theological ethics that could both explain repression in religious terms and propose specific responses to violence. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the book highlights the ways that progressive Catholicism offered a justification and tools for political resistance in the face of extraordinary destruction. Using the case of Catholicism in El Salvador, the book explores the nature of religious responses to social crisis and the ways that ordinary believers construct and strive to live by ethical systems. By highlighting the importance of theological belief, of narrative, and of religious rationality in political mobilization, it touches questions of general interest to readers concerned with the social role of religion and ethics.

"The author employs research that is both methodologically and conceptually innovative. She is working where the field of religion and politics in Latin America needs to be headed: research that focuses on the participants themselves and not just an institutional analysis of church and state". -- Michael A. Burdick, Center for the Study of Religion, University of California, Santa Barbara

"This is a revelatory work. The reader is provided with fresh and unusual insights. There are popularaccounts of life and death in Central America but none, to my knowledge, that approach the subject from the theological depth which the author possesses". -- Edward L. Clearly, Providence College

In Works Righteousness, Anna L. Peterson examines the place of practice in contemporary ethical theory. Peterson argues that rather than assuming that pre-established moral ideas guide action, ethicists should acknowledge and explore the relationship between ideas, actions, and results. Both an analysis of alternative models in which practice plays a stronger role and an argument for taking practice more seriously in broad questions of ethics as well as in concrete case studies, Works Righteousness contends that what we do generates and alters our values, just as often as expressed values motivate or guide the ways we act. Peterson here challenges prevailing philosophical and religious theories that ideas are what truly matter, underlining the value of attention to people's concrete experiences and highlighting the relevance of theoretical insights to contemporary social issues such as climate change, euthanasia, and hate speech. Through examinations of pragmatism, Marxism, and religious pacifism, all of which significantly highlight a practice-focused approach, Works Righteousness addresses the way social structures condition moral ideas and actions, the dangers of thinking about moral problems as polarized dilemmas, and the complex mutual shaping of ideas and actions.

For most people, animals are the most significant aspects of the nonhuman world. They symbolize nature in our imaginations, in popular media and culture, and in campaigns to preserve wilderness, yet scholars habitually treat animals and the environment as mutually exclusive objects of concern. Conducting the first examination of animals' place in popular and scholarly thinking about nature, Anna L. Peterson builds a nature ethic that conceives of nonhuman animals as active subjects who are simultaneously parts of both nature and human society. Peterson explores the tensions between humans and animals, nature and culture, animals and nature, and domesticity and wildness. She uses our intimate connections with companion animals to examine nature more broadly. Companion animals are liminal creatures straddling the boundary between human society and wilderness, revealing much about the mutually constitutive relationships binding humans and nature together. Through her paradigm-shifting reflections, Peterson disrupts the artificial boundaries between two seemingly distinct categories, underscoring their fluid and continuous character.

Before Columbus, the Americas were populated by many indigenous cultures, with a great diversity of religions. After 1492, European governments and churches dominated religious life. While Roman Catholicism was the official religion, great religious hybridization occurred, mixing European, indigenous, and often African traditions into distinctly New World forms.

Latin American Religions provides an introduction through documents to the historical development and contemporary expressions of religious life in South and Central America, Mexico, and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. A central feature of this text is its inclusion of both primary and secondary materials, including letters, sermons, journal entries, ritual manuals, and ancient sacred texts. These documents provide readers with direct access to the voices of adherents, enabling them to act as academic investigators, experiencing and interpreting the same texts on which historians draw. The documents are framed by substantive introductions which provide both historical context and theoretical insights for the study of these religions traditions and the ways in which they have developed over time.

From the religious traditions of the Mayas and Aztecs and of the African diaspora, to official and popular Catholicism, to liberation theology, the rise of Pentecostalism, and emerging trends and new religious movements in Latin America, this new work offers a concise overview of this fascinating field.

"["Being Human] is one of the few books that begins to integrate theological narratives with scientific ones, looking for a compelling correlation between them where modern and religious sensibilities might both be affirmed. This is a unique work."--Bron Taylor, Professor and Director of Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, and author of "Ecological Resistance Movements: The Global Emergence of Radical and Popular Environmentalism.

""Being Human succeeds at accounting for people's conception of humaness and human's relationship with nature--no easy task, but one that is a crucial starting point for any discussion of environmental ethics."--Kay Read, Associate Professor of Comparative Ethics and Native American Religions, DePaul University, and author of "Time and Sacrifice in the Aztec Cosmos

"Anna Peterson's "Being Human is a stellar work of integration. Peterson argues that the ideology of human exceptionalism and disconnection from the rest of nature is a major source of social and ecological harm. She draws together cultural constructionist, Asian, Native American, feminist and evolutionary thought to present a view of the human as both an integral part of nature and a creator of culture, called to develop an ethic of interrelationality for the sake of the wellbeing of the whole earth community."--Rosemary Radford Ruether, Garrett Theological Center, author of "Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing.

"In the postmodern academic climate of slice-and-dice, take-no-prisoners 'analysis, ' and 'critical theory, ' Anna Peterson's book is a welcome breath of fresh air. She positions her discussion as a development of--rather than a deconstructivetriumph over--earlier work in the field of environmental philosophy. Peterson takes up the themes that are absolutely central to the field--the nature of nature, human nature, and the appropriate relationship between the two. Her conclusions are well-informed, well-reasoned, reasonable, and last but not least, beautifully and engagingly expressed."--Baird Callicott, Professor of Philosophy and Religion Studies, University of North Texas, and author of "Earth's Insights: A Multicultural Survey of Ecological Ethics from the Mediterranean Basin to the Australian Outback (California, 1997), "In Defense of the Land: Essays in Environmental Philosophy, and "Beyond the Land Ethic: More Essays in Environmental Philosophy.

"Peterson challenges us to think critically about the ideas about nature and humanity that shape our ethical behavior. She also brings into critical dialogue insights from a wide variety of religious traditions--Buddhist, Taoist, Navaho, Koyukon, Catholic and Protestant. Peterson helps us think creatively and critically about the task of comparative ethics, and the imperatives of environmental ethics. This book is a must-read for any one concerned with environmental ethics and with comparative ethics."--Sharon Welch, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia, and author of "A Feminist Ethic of Risk, Sweet Dreams in America: Making Ethics and Spirituality Work, and "Communities of Resistance and Solidarity: A Feminist Theology of LIberation.

In these skeptical and disillusioned times, there are still groups of people scattered throughout the world who are trying to live out utopian dreams. These communities challenge the inevitability and morality of dominant political and economic models. By putting utopian religious ethics into practice, they attest to the real possibility of social alternatives. In Seeds of the Kingdom, Anna L. Peterson reflects on the experiences of two very different communities, one inhabited by impoverished former refugees in the mountains of El Salvador and the other by Amish farmers in the Midwestern U.S. What makes these groups stand out among advocates of environmental protection, political justice, and sustainable development is their religious orientation. They aim, without apology, to embody the reign of God on earth. The Salvadoran community is grounded in Roman Catholic social thought, while the Amish adhere to Anabaptist tradition. Peterson offers a detailed portrait of these communities' history, social organization, religious life, environmental values, and agricultural practices. She discovers both practical and ideological commonalities in these two comparatively successful and sustainable communities, including a strong collective identity, deep attachment to local landscapes, a desire to preserve non-human as well as human lives, and, perhaps unexpectedly, a utopian horizon that provides both goals and the hope of reaching them. By examining the process by which people struggle to live according to a transcendent value system, she sheds light on both the actual and the potential place of religion in public life. Peterson argues that the Amish and Salvadoran communities, geographicallyand culturally removed from the industrialized West, have relevance for the political and environmental problems of the developed world. These communities have succeeded in the face of significant internal and external challenges, offering important practical and theoretical lessons on how to achieve ecological sustainability and social justice in the wider world.

This interdisciplinary volume resulted from a three-year collaborative research project into the ways diverse Protestant and Catholic congregations in the Americas interpret and respond to the changes globalization has wrought. Contributors from the fields of religion, anthropology, political science, and sociology draw on fieldwork in Peru, El Salvador, and the United States to provide their own perspectives on economic globalization, migration, and the increasing religious pluralism in Latin America.

Organized around three central themes -- family, youth, and community; democratization, citizenship, and political participation; and immigration and transnationalism -- the book argues first that, at the local level, religion helps people, especially women and youths, solidify their identities and confront challenges. The essays show religious communities to be both peaceful venues for people to voice their needs and forums for the building of participatory democracies in the Americas. Finally, the contributors look at communities of Peruvians and Salvadorans in the United States. They examine how religion enfranchises poor women, youths, and people displaced by war or economic change and, at the same time, drives social movements that seek to strengthen family and community bonds that have been disrupted by migration and political violence.

Skillfully edited to cohere and complement each other, these essays represent an important contribution to our understanding of the many powerful forces shaping life in the Americas at the dawn of the twenty-first century.