History of Religiosity in Latin America Online, c. 1830–1970

The CIDOC Collection

Edited by Valentina Borremans with the assistance of Ivan Illich

Until recently it was impossible for sociologists, anthropologists, historians of attitudes and social psychologists to develop the study of religion in modern Latin America into a field of teaching and research. The documents pertaining to the colonial period are, of course, preserved and often well edited. But the publications of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that deal with local devotions and syncretist rituals, religious iconography and poetry, and the pastoral campaigns of the various churches and sects, remained unnoticed until the early 1960s, when Ivan Illich began to collect them in the CIDOC Library of Cuernavaca, Mexico. Under the care of Valentina Borremans the collection grew, and is still growing vigorously after having become part of El Colegio de México. Reproduced from a wide range of libraries throughout Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and Chile, this vast and invaluable collection is now available in fully searchable digital format for the first time.