The value of this work is threefold: it recounts concisely and lucidly the complex and tumultuous history of Latin American Christianity; it recreates the religious and secular context from which emerged an abundance of saints and sinners —some well known, others obscure or long forgotten; and it forces a rereading of a history not known by most of us North Americans and Europeans —and by relatively few Latin Americans —a history in which all of us are inextricably involved.