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RELIGION 507 traites des maitres-penseurs.' Cest la-dessus que se termine Ie livre de Marcel Rioux et cette seule phrase rend compte avec justesse de bien des remous qui agitent en ce moment la production sociologique et philosophique. Religion EMERO STIEG MAN Whether because of a growing influence of the social sciences in the conception of religion generally, or because of an evolving Canadian social consciousness, a striking number of 1978 books on religion seems to point to a heightened Canadian interest in religion as a cultural determinant. There is a study of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Britain, one of nineteenth-century Ireland, three of various areas of Canada, a critical edition of source materials important to the Mennonites , and finally a collection of essays on religion and ethnicity. Before commenting on the essays I must call attention briefly to the historical studies which suggest, by their simultaneous appearance, the timeliness of the theme. Paul Christianson's Reformers and Babylon: English Apocalyptic Visions from the Reformation to the Eve of the Civil War (University of Toronto Press, x, 285, $17.50) is a compelling application of the analytical framework of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago 1962) to an era of British intellectual history. For the English and the Scots of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries St John's Apocalypse, reinforced by the Book of Daniel, formed the paradigm according to which they interpreted the events of the times. The paradigm was richer, more comprehensively applied, and more generally accepted among common people than historians have obsefVed. Christianson's documentation makes a credible case out of what would otherwise seem an implausibly tidy conception. Then, in The Protestant Crusade in Ireland, 1800-70: A Study of Protestant-Catholic Relations Between the Act of Union and Disestablishment (Gill and Macmillan/McGillQueen 's University Press, xvi, 412), Desmond Bowen reconstructs the thought of nineteenth-century Irish Protestant proselytising bodies and their influence upon Irish history. Every Marxist historian should be forced to confront the example that Bowen here provides of a society conditioned by ethnic or cultural struggle far greater in its effects than those of class struggle. Ethnicity is conceived as culture and these terms are used with respect to the two 'nations,' Protestant and Catholic, within southern Ireland. Each of these cultures is characterized by its commitment to a religious outlook. The author, a mature and polished historian, weaves a closely textured narrative, colourful in detail, with- 508 LETTERS IN CANADA 1978 out ever allowing the larger questions to slip out of sight. A reading of Bowen would of itself spawn sociological theory regarding the function of religion in a culture. A better understanding of the function of religion in one Canadian ethnic group is offered in a publication of the Institute of Mennonite Studies, The Writings of Pilgrim Marpeck, translated and edited by William Klassen and Walter Klaasen (Classics of the Radical Reformation 2, Herald Press, 612, $28.95). This is a smooth-reading critical edition, with an introduction on the life and thought of Marpeck (d "556), an introduction to each entry, useful illustrations, and multiple indices. Obviously important in Anabaptist research, the material includes much that has only recently been discovered, the bulk ofMarpeck's letters, for example. Three historical investigations centre on religious and ethnic attitudes in Canadian society. Equal Rights: The Jesuits' Estates Act Controversy (McGill-Queen's University Press, 208, $13.95) by J. R. Miller examines the turbulent popular reaction to the Quebec statute of 1888 recompensing the Jesuits for the loss of their land after the British conquest. The emotions unleashed by the act led to assaults upon Roman Catholic education and use of the French language in Ontario. Then there is the biographical work of Thomas Flanagan, Louis 'David' Riel: Prophet of the New World (University of Toronto Press, 208, $15.00). Flanagan is the first scholar to take Riel's religion seriously. The Metis hero, who thought of himself to the end as a n'ligious prophet, led a rebellion which was, we are told, as much a religious as a political movement. More than a reinterpretation, this new life, which relies on primary manuscripts throughout...

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