Que hacer con Dios en la Republican？ Politicay secularization en Chile, 1845-1885

摘要

Sol Serrano's latest book will have a profound impact on Chilean and Latin American historiography. It demonstrates the significance of religion and the Catholic Church for understanding the transition from monarchical to republican rule in nineteenth-century Chile. Serrano poses the series of questions that guided her research in various national and international archives, and in the Chilean press and congressional debates. Is it possible to write a history of secularisation? Is it possible to study religion from a standpoint that is neither liberal nor conservative, neither anti-clerical nor ultramontane? Is it possible to study secularisation as a process and not as progress, as liberals would have it? Is it possible to study secularisation, from a religious standpoint, no longer as a disaster but simply as historical change? These are all pertinent questions, especially considering the partisan nature of the historiography on the subject.