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The following review appeared in the May 2015 issue of CHOICE. The review is for your internal use only. Please review our Permission and Reprints Guidelines or email permissions@ala-choice.org.
Social & Behavioral Sciences
History, Geography & Area Studies - Latin America & the Caribbean
Offen and Rugeley have translated into English, edited, and annotated the writings of the multinational Moravian missionaries who brought their faith to Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast and to the Creole, Indigenous, and African-descended peoples who lived in what is today the region of the Atlantic terminus of the Nicaraguan canal. As the editors note, the collection documents how, in the 50 years following the 1849 arrival of two missionaries, the Moravian faith turned from a relatively obscure branch of European Protestantism into the most important political and spiritual institution of the Mosquitia region (true into contemporary times), and a major enclave for the denomination itself. The writings include letters, diaries, reports, official communications, amateur folklore and ethnology, and other personal musings, such as travel writings. Largely through the editors' insightful and contextualizing introductions to the volume and to each carefully selected document, the book provides a window into the impact of the Great Awakening of 1881 and 1882 on missionaries and local residents alike, the growth of the mission and the political economic social changes in the region, and the texture of intricate cross-cultural intra- and interfaith encounters.
--A. E. Adams, Central Connecticut State University