Description
Book SynopsisFocusing on the formative period of European exploration, settlement, and conquest in the Americas, from roughly 1500 to 1760, Empires of God brings together literary scholars and historians of the English, French, and Spanish Americas to demonstrate the power of religious ideas and narratives to create kingdoms both imagined and real.
Trade Review"In its effort to unearth complexity as well as its intellectual and methodological diversity,
Empires of God offers a sometimes bewildering, but frequently rewarding, entry into the interplay between its two central characters: "empire" and "religion." It provides scholars of Atlantic world religious history with a strong and theoretically driven survey of the field, particularly issues related to conquest, violence, evangelization, and the influence of the colonial world on discourses of religion in Europe." *
Church History *
"This stimulating collection of essays from leading scholars of literature and history explores the complex relationships between Christianity and empire in the English, French, and Spanish Americas. . . . A major contribution of this work is thus to place religious thought at the heart of the analysis of colonialism." *
Religious Studies Review *
"A fine collection with plenty of fascinating articles, particularly in the second and third sections which present us with various individual religious initiatives and experiences. . . . The variety of subjects discussed in
Empires of God will eventually help to sharpen the minds of scholars working on one of the many connections of religion and (Atlantic) empire." *
Sixteenth Century Journal *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
—Susan Juster and Linda Gregerson
PART I. LAUNCHING IMPERIAL PROJECTS
Chapter 1. The Polemics of Possession: Spain on America, Circa 1550
—Rolena Adorno
Chapter 2. Cruelty and Religious Justifications for Conquest in the Mid-Seventeenth-Century English Atlantic
—Carla Gardina Pestana
Chapter 3. Religion and National Distinction in the Early Modern Atlantic
—Barbara Fuchs
Chapter 4. The Commonwealth of the Word: New England, Old England, and the Praying Indians
—Linda Gregerson
PART II. COLONIAL ACCOMMODATIONS
Chapter 5. Catholic Saints in Spain's Atlantic Empire
—Cornelius Conover
Chapter 6. A Wandering Jesuit in Europe and America: Father Chaumonot Finds a Home
—Allan Greer
Chapter 7. From London to Nonantum: Mission Literature in the Transatlantic English World
—Kristina Bross
Chapter 8. Dreams Clash: The War over Authorized Interpretation in Seventeenth-Century French Missions
—Dominique Deslandres
Chapter 9. "For Each and Every House to Wish for Peace":
Christoph Saur's High German American Almanac and the French and Indian War in Pennsylvania
—Bethany Wiggin
PART III. VIOLENT ENCOUNTERS
Chapter 10. Reconfiguring Martyrdom in the Colonial Context: Marie de l'Incarnation
—Katherine Ibbett
Chapter 11. Book of Suffering, Suffering Book: The Mennonite Martyrs' Mirror and the Translation of Martyrdom in Colonial America
—Patrick Erben
Chapter 12. Iconoclasm Without Icons? The Destruction of Sacred Objects in Colonial North America
—Susan Juster
Final Reflections: Spenser and the End of the British Empire
—Paul Stevens
Notes
List of Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
