In recent years scholarship on the transformations of local religion in Mexico has experienced a significant expansion as historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and social scientists have reconsidered or abandoned former perspectives advanced as findings by writers, philosophers, and eruditos. The provocative and brilliant characterizations of Mexican religious life advanced by post-revolutionary writers in twentieth-century Mexico are fading away as departure points for scholars in this complex and intriguing field. William Taylor's recent book is robust evidence of this accelerating transformation, and represents a major step in the consolidation of a new perspective on the history of local devotions in colonial Mexico. Shrines & Miraculous Images is a collection of essays on religious venerations in pre-industrial Mexico, written by a leading voice in the field with decades of meticulous research in ecclesiastical archives. The book spans the early seventeenth century to the days of the Republica Restaurada in the late 1860s, and analyzes with a microscopic lens the genesis, evolution, and transformations of some of the most important religious icons in colonial and early national Mexico. Based on a truly extraordinary array of primary sources, it presents the history of local and regional shrines along with their sometimes-unpredictable metamorphosis across time.

The book is divided into three parts, and the first is dedicated to the history of the “images and immanence” in colonial Mexico, presenting as its subject matter the images from the Santo Cristo Renovado de Ixmiquilpan (or del Cardonal, or de Santa Teresa). Taylor not only retraces step by step the various transformations and reinventions of images' identities, but also indisputably reframes the ways in which scholars should approach the study of religious images in Mexico and Latin America more generally. Engaging in a sophisticated debate with experts in religious studies from other latitudes, the author reformulates the different connections between laity, church authorities, communities, and various ethnic groups and religious associations. The outcome unveils the coexistence of simultaneous and dissonant image narratives that change and evolve at dissimilar paces and in singular directions.

Part II represents a fundamental contribution to the debate on the history of the devotion of Our Lady of Guadalupe and her shrine at the Tepeyac hill footstep. While carefully evaluating the contrasting perspectives on the controversy, the author compellingly identifies their shortcomings, drawing on irrefutable evidence from archival records. The inescapable conclusion is that the history of Our Lady of Guadalupe from the seventeenth century to the Independence Wars in the early nineteenth century has been grossly oversimplified. Taylor provides a full reevaluation of the devotion's trajectories and shifts in this time period, but does not ignore the astonishing amount of new evidence that points in many new and different directions. A particularly delightful section at the end of Part II presents a robust critique of the traditional nationalist view of Our Lady of Guadalupe as the opposite of Our Lady of Los Remedios during the Independence Wars.

Part III constitutes a completely fresh perspective on shrines and devotions in the nineteenth-century Mexican landscape. While the history of major shrines in the early national period is yet to be written, Taylor provides a strong foundation for future study in terms of both archival research and key methodological issues.

Shrines & Miraculous Images is written with an eloquence, competence, knowledge, and authority that reminds this reader of professor Edmundo O'Gorman's book Destierro de sombras (UNAM 1986). It changes the historiography of religious images in Mexican culture and will force scholars to rethink the history of Mexican religious practices and culture from an innovative and provocative perspective. The book is an instant classic and significant contribution to the understanding of Mexican culture.