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Reviewed by:
  • Angels, Demons And The New World ed. by Fernando Cervantes, Andrew Redden
  • Sabine Hyland
Angels, Demons and the New World. Edited by Fernando Cervantes and Andrew Redden. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2013. Pp. xii, 318. $95.00. ISBN 978-0-521-76458-2.)

The rediscovery of the baroque culture of seventeenth-century Spanish America has been one of the most exciting developments in Latin American historiography in the past fifteen years. No longer viewed as merely a period of stagnation caught between the Spanish Conquest of the Indies and the Wars of Independence, the seventeenth century is now recognized as a time of cultural ferment when the foundations of rural life for modern Latin America were laid. Angels, Demons and the New World is a significant new addition to this burgeoning body of work on seventeenth-century Spanish America.

The articles in this collection explore how European concepts of angels and demons were transformed in seventeenth-century Latin America. As the editors and contributors demonstrate, angels and demons came to form part of the cosmologies that affected the daily lives of people in the cities and the countryside throughout Spanish America. Special attention is paid to how missionary networks circulated these beliefs about celestial and demonic spirits among Spanish, creole, indigenous, and mestizo populations. The editors, Fernando Cervantes and Andrew Redden, are both highly experienced researchers on this topic, having authored The Devil in the New World: The Impact of Diabolism in New Spain (New Haven, 1994) and Diabolism in Colonial Peru, 1650–1750 (London, 2005) respectively. Angels, Demons and the New World is the result of a major Leverhulme Research Project directed by Cervantes on angels and demons in the Hispanic world. In its breadth, balance, and willingness to explore a hitherto overlooked aspect of daily life in seventeenth-century Spanish America, this volume is a highly welcome addition.

After a substantive introduction by the editors, the essays are divided into three sections. The first section, “Old World to New,” presents three chapters on angelic and demonic beliefs in early-modern Spain. These three excellent articles include one on antisuperstition literature by Andrew Keit; an article on Hieronymites and the devil by Kenneth Mills, and a piece on mendicants and angels by Cervantes. The next section, “Indigenous Responses,” is composed of Louise Burkhart’s analysis of demons and angels in Nahua theater; Caterina [End Page 390] Pizzigoni’s study of Nahua cosmology; and Redden’s study of “disguised” angels and demons in New Granada. The final section, “The World of the Baroque,” rounds off the discussion with a consideration of angels and demons in baroque art and culture in Peru and New Spain. Ramón Mujica Pinilla presents a brilliant analysis of representations of demons and angels in the Spanish conquest of Peru, Jaime Cuadriello examines pictorial images of winged and imagined Indians in New Spain, and David Brading concludes the collection with an eloquent meditation on angels in colonial Puebla and in the hagiography of Caterina de San Juan. Although witchcraft in the colonial Americas has been well studied, angelology has escaped sustained consideration until now. These well-written essays break new ground in Latin American studies; Angels, Demons and the New World will be of interest to scholars and students of Latin American colonial history, religious studies, anthropology of religion, and church history.

Sabine Hyland
University of St. Andrews
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