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 underrepresentation 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 (...