Book Reviews

Valdivia Gimenez, Ramon (2010) Llamado a la mision pacífica: la dimension religiosade la libertad en Bartolome de las Casas, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones CientíficasUniversidad de Sevilla (Madrid), 395 pp. ¤20.00 pbk.

During the late nineteenth century and through most of the twentieth, Lascasianscholarship was underdeveloped and tended to reflect the conflicted nature of Lascasianhistoriography. Much tension existed between over-vilification and over-encomiasticperspectives of Bartolome de Las Casas’s critique of the conquest and colonisation.As fuller access to edited versions of Las Casas’s writings became available, a betterunderstanding of his life, labour and legacy developed. Ramon Valdivia Gimenez’scritical examination of the religious dimension of liberty in Las Casas’s thought is partof this growing body of current Lascasian scholarship.

The chapters of this thematically organised book are divided into three sections:historical, analytic and systematic. The historical section provides contextualisation.Chapter 1 offers an introduction and succinct biographical synthesis of Las Casas’slife and writings. Chapter 2 places Las Casas within the broader philosophical andtheological intellectual traditions of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.Chapter 3 provides a solid (although brief) and highly technical examination of LasCasas’s juridical sources and their medieval and contemporaneous contexts.

The analytic section offers comparisons. Chapter 4 examines contemporaneousEuropean attitudes related to the question of the level of humanity of the peoplesnewly encountered in the Americas. Chapter 5 contrasts Juan Gines de Sepulveda’shumanist-secular political assertions about the Spaniards’ alleged moral and religious

© 2013 The Authors. Bulletin of Latin American Research © 2013 Society for Latin American StudiesBulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 32, No. 2 251

Book Reviews

superiority with Las Casas’s initially theocratic perspective, which – as Valdivia Gimenezargued – employed categories of freedom and alterity, as well as evolved to reflectproto-modern principles of government such as consent of the governed. Chapter 6compares Las Casas’s rational, persuasive and peaceful method of evangelisation withthe missiological approaches of Toribio de Benavente Motolonia and Sepulveda.

The systematic section juxtaposes contemporaneous and contemporary issues.Chapter 7 highlights the importance of the conversion of conscience – that of theSpaniards who conquered to pursue riches and power, and that of the Indigenouswhom Las Casas wished to evangelise, whose liberty he championed, and whose reli-gious expressions he deemed legitimate. Chapter 8 contrasts the evolution of ecclesialand societal notions of religious freedom with Las Casas’s thought on the religiousdimension of liberty. Chapter 9 broaches the subject of alterity by contrasting theproblem of knowledge and acceptance of the other on both sides of the Atlantic.

This well-written book, with its helpful section introductions and succinct chapterconclusions, constitutes new and important Lascasian scholarship that goes beyondthe polemical and ahistorical. While Valdivia Gimenez methodologically employs aninterdisciplinary approach that is historical, juridical, theological and sociological, hispublication is essentially a philosophical study of Las Casas’s concept of the religiousdimension of liberty, which the Dominican derived from natural law and subjectivenatural rights. Although Valdivia Gimenez presents Las Casas as an advocate of thereligious dimension of freedom, he argues that Las Casas’s views on the issue, while notexplicitly articulated, were part of the broader discourse of the time and even resonatedin modern conceptions of religious freedom.

In spite of the many strengths of this work, certain issues needed more attention.For example, this study would have benefited from the important scholarship of thenew philologists, such as those coming from James Lockhart’s school (for example,Matthew Restall and Kevin Terraciano). Gesturing toward this scholarship would haveprovided valuable background information about pre- and post-contact Indigenousgroups, and would have enriched the discussion of the other side of the Atlantic,namely, of the perspectives of Indigenous peoples. In a similar vein, the author, attimes, essentialises the Indigenous as good and peaceful people, which ignores the factthat many Indigenous groups participated and collaborated with the Spaniards in theconquest of native groups. Also, he asserted that the acceptance of the other by eachside of the Atlantic benefited from mestizaje (racial mixing) and made his case fromprimarily European accounts. His discussion would have benefited from gender studiesrelated to the conquest, especially those about gender violence and sexual power, asfound, for example, in the work of Karen Vieira Powers.

Generally the book is a highly technical read and seems directed towards special-ists in Lascasian scholarship, particularly towards those familiar with the ideationalworld of Las Casas. Additionally, as a publication only in Spanish, its audience isunfortunately restricted; the book needs to be published in English. Furthermore,the numerous citations in Latin present a challenge for those not skilled in thisancient language and should be translated in footnotes. Nevertheless, this impres-sive publication is in the mainstream of current Lascasian scholarship, as well ascontinues and contributes to the seminal works of Ramon Queralto Moreno andGustavo Gutierrez.

David Thomas OriqueProvidence College

© 2013 The Authors. Bulletin of Latin American Research © 2013 Society for Latin American Studies252 Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 32, No. 2