From Ancient Rome to Colonial Mexico compares the Christianization of the Roman Empire with the evangelization of Mesoamerica, offering novel perspectives on the historical processes involved in the spread of Christianity. Combining concepts of empire and globalization with the notion of religion from a postcolonial perspective, the book proposes the method of analytical comparison as a point of departure to conceptualize historical affinities and differences between the ancient Roman Empire and colonial Mesoamerica.

An international team of specialists in classical scholarship and Mesoamerican studies engage in an interdisciplinary discussion involving ideas from history, anthropology, archaeology, art history, iconography, and philology. Key themes include the role of religion in processes of imperial domination; religion’s use as an instrument of resistance or the imposition, appropriation, incorporation, and adaptation of various elements of religious systems by hegemonic groups and subaltern peoples; the creative misunderstandings that can arise on the “middle ground”; and Christianity’s rejection of ritual violence and its use of this rejection as a pretext for inflicting other kinds of violence against peoples classified as “barbarian,” “pagan,” or “diabolical.”

From Ancient Rome to Colonial Mexico presents a sympathetic vantage point for discussing and attempting to decipher past processes of social communication in multicultural contexts of present-day realities. It will be significant for scholars and specialists in the history of religions, ethnohistory, classical antiquity, and Mesoamerican studies.

Publication supported, in part, by Spain’s Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.

Contributors: Sergio Botta,Maria Celia Fontana Calvo, Martin Devecka, György Németh, Guilhem Olivier, Francisco Marco Simón, Paolo Taviani, Greg Woolf, David Charles Wright-Carr, Lorenzo Pérez Yarza
Translators: Emma Chesterman, Benjamin Adam Jerue, Layla Wright-Contreras

David Charles Wright-Carr is full professor in the Department of Visual Arts of the University of Guanajuato (Mexico) and corresponding member of the Academia Mexicana de la Historia. He has been awarded research grants and fellowships by the University of Texas at Austin, the Department of Pre-Columbian Studies at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, the Newberry Library, and the Princeton University Library. He is the author of Lectura del Náhuatl and editor of Origen de la santísima cruz de milagrosde la ciudad de Querétaro.

Francisco Marco Simón is emeritus professor of ancient history at the University of Zaragoza (Spain). He is the author of Cultus deorum: La religión en la Roma antigua and coeditor of Magical Practice in the Latin West, Contesti Magici / Contextos Mágicos, and Choosing Magic: Contexts, Objects, Meaning; The Archaeology of Instrumental Religion in the Latin West and has been awarded the European Prize of 2006 by the Prehistoric Society of London.