<scp>Religious Conflict in Mexico</scp> : <i>Two Centuries of Catholic Culture Wars</i>

A century ago, Mexico's countryside erupted in an episode of religious violence known as the Cristero War, in which Catholic partisans launched a holy war against Mexico's revolutionary state.In the decades since, and in particular since the 1973 publication of Jean Meyer's seminal La Cristiada, a host of historians (myself included) have pored over archival documents in Mexico, the United States, the Vatican, and elsewhere in order to understand and reconstruct the dramatic story of this three-year-long conflict (1926-29).With its cast of heroes and villains; its transnational networks connecting Catholics in the United States, Europe, and Rome; its spies, gunrunners, and women's brigades; and its pantheon of unofficial and canonized martyrs, the Cristero War has proven a compelling subject of standalone historical study.