This ambitious book aims not only to describe but to connect the phenomena that often represent Latin America and the Caribbean in global histories of Christianity – the sixteenth-century missionary efforts concomitant with the Spanish and Portuguese conquests, and the twentieth-century phenomena of liberation theology and Pentecostalism. The authors begin with standard narratives of Native American-European contact, focusing on better documented narratives from the region's highly differentiated societies (Mesoamerican, Andean) with some contrast from less-densely populated and segregated regions (Caribbean, Tupí-speaking). Anecdotes from the colonial era illustrate the ‘shaping of the faith’, and draw attention to the early and enduring presence of challenges to the Christianity that became Roman Catholicism. Coverage of pre-independence conflicts that affected religious life (particularly the Bourbon and Pombaline reforms), as well as the independence movements, also are broad in their sweep and generally satisfactory. The authors cover familiar conservative-liberal tensions in useful detail, and interweave the pivotal roles that religious (and non-religious) loyalties and mandates for change have played in struggles for ‘temporal authority’ (p. 135). In their examination of the roles of Christianities in nation-building, González and González expand the history of Latin American Protestantism beyond the more familiar, recent growth of Evangelical communities (for example. American African Methodist immigrants' contributions to Haiti and the Dominican Republic [pp. 198–9]). Some descriptions of the arrival and establishment of Protestant worship communities, however, reflect the enthusiasm of their primary sources more than critical analysis (for example the account of the prophecy revealing the timing and direction of Gunnar Vingren's and Daniel Berg's mission to Brazil, pp. 281–2). The authors seek to address nationalist critiques of foreign missionaries, but often do so as they describe the contributions of such adherents. They emphasise the ‘process by which Protestant missions became Protestant churches’ in Latin American countries (p. 223), but never precisely explain how the gap between outside influence and ‘autochthonous’ is bridged. Their coverage of Roman Catholicism in Latin America since the wars for independence, with its left-right tensions, is richly detailed, and reinforces their thesis that despite Latin America's under-representation in histories and at international meetings like Vatican II (p. 241), its ecclesiastical leaders', theologians's, and laypeople's interpretations and implementations have greatly influenced Catholicism worldwide. However, some characterisations raise concern, such as noticeable contrasts in portrayals of participants in different worship communities. The participation of Latin American mainstream and Evangelical Protestants is described well, but, particularly in the modern period, Roman Catholics as adherents are largely represented as ‘nominal’ believers (the only exceptions being the cursillo movement [pp. 175–6] and charismatics [pp. 187–9]). Though González and González cite the praxis of liberation theology as one of the region's principal contributions to global Christianity, they almost exclusively describe its published authors, and then move on to ‘resistance’ to it. The only lay participants described are those of the base ecclesial community of Solentiname, Nicaragua, who are said to be ‘representative’ as they articulate a ‘revolutionary ethos that clearly reflected [Ernesto] Cardenal's own views’ (p. 253). Using Guatemala as an example, other jarring references like Justo Rufino Barrios's emphases on modernisation (including invitations to Presbyterian missionaries), are mentioned (pp. 221, 228), but not those of expropriation and racial discrimination. Similarly, the United States is described as having its attention ‘diverted from’ Latin America until the Cuban Revolution (p. 233 – with no mention of the overthrow of Arbenz). Efrain Rios Montt's seizure of power in 1982 is characterised first as evidence of increased Pentecostal involvement in politics, and then, laconically, as rule ‘with an iron hand’ (p. 295). The authors acknowledge the ‘death, torture, and tragedy for thousands of Latin Americans’ (p. 260) that characterised the latter half of the twentieth century, but little effort is made to connect this to the ‘modernisation’ campaigns that so often included manipulations of religious as well as racial and political categorisation. The book concludes with brief but telling descriptions of autochthonous movements that have both begun and spread worldwide from Latin America (though some adherents might bristle at being called ‘Heterodox or Questionable’), and then contrasts them to the state of the Roman Catholic, mainline Protestant, and established evangelical worship communities in the region. They rightly conclude that Latin American Christianity is ‘an active participant in the life of the church throughout the world’ (p. 309), lending credence to their invitation to readers to place Latin America at the centre, rather than the periphery, of analyses of global Christianity.

A strength of González and González's writing is their explicit mention, in the text and in the bibliographic essay, of leading scholars, which will benefit readers new to these subjects. However, the sparse in-text annotation may leave students wondering how conclusions about outlier historical figures are reached. More definition of terms would also have been helpful (for example clarification of calced and discalced nuns [p. 77] or ‘ensorcellment’ [p. 97]). Similarly, details and anecdotes would be enhanced by maps and illustrations. Sweeping surveys inevitably contain minor errors, which an instructor or researcher would need to correct (noticed by this reviewer: a Protestant accepted a post in Mexico City in 1827, said to be ‘one year after’ the outset of the Cristero rebellion [p. 214], which was in 1926. Archbishop José Mora y del Río's interview calling for resistance to the 1917 Constitution was given that year, not in 1926, as the Mexican government then claimed [p. 145]). This book serves as a comprehensive and accessible overview, although it should be read carefully, particularly by introductory students and non-area specialists.