Person and God in a Spanish Valley : Revised Edition

The description for this book, Person and God in a Spanish Valley, will be forthcoming. A classic twentieth-century work in the anthropology of Catholicism Person and God in a Spanish Valley is a moving portrait of how individuals and communities in a remote, mountainous valley of northern Spain relate to the divine. In the late 1960s, anthropologist and historian William A. Christian, Jr., conducted groundbreaking fieldwork in the Nansa Valley, one of the most devout regions of Spain. With sensitivity and uncommon insight, Christian describes the complex system of shrines, devotions, and pilgrimages that existed in the region for centuries, and recounts the disruption of the valley's traditional way of life as young priests from urban centers arrived carrying a more modern, Vatican II version of Catholicism. Person and God in a Spanish Valley places Catholic faith and practice within a broader history of agrarian politics and reform in northern Spain, and stands as a landmark work of modern anthropology.

'William Christian has given us an extremely sensitive study of man, religion and society in a valley in Northern Spain...The reader somehow experiences the passing of the generations and the centuries, the succession of priests with different views, each representative of the Catholicism of his time, the propagation and then institutionalization of ever-changing forms of worship, and the tension set up between innovating priest and conservative community...All in all I find this a truly admirable book. Not only will it be of value to students of the subject, it should also give them much pleasure.' -Emanuel de Kadt, Religion

Religion

[This book] successfully straddle[s] the interests of the religious or theological specialist and those of the social scientist . . . William Christian has given us an extremely sensitive study of man, religion and society in a valley in Northern Spain. . . .

Chapter One. The People: Activity And Identity -- Introduction: The Annual Cycle -- Identities: National Identity -- Regional Identity -- The Vale -- Village And Parish -- Barriada -- The Family Home -- Relations With The Rest Of The World: Aspects Of Identities That Have Changed -- Chapter Two: The Saints: Shrines And Generalized Devotions -- Introduction -- The National Shrines -- Regional Shrines -- El Brezo And La Bien Aparecida -- Valley Shrines -- Barriada Chapels -- Images In The Churches -- Baptismal Names -- Brotherhoods And Missions -- Summary -- Chapter Three: Person And God -- Conclusions: Three World Views. William A. Christian, Jr. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.