La Conquistadora: The Virgin Mary at War and Peace in the Old and New Worlds, (Paperback)

In this admirably comprehensive and multifaceted reconstruction of the development of the Hispanic perception of the Virgin Mary as Conqueror, Amy Remensnyder displays staggering range and insight. The book covers nearly a thousand years of Marian history, from the origins of the Reconquista in Spain through to the re-conquest of New Mexico after the Pueblo revolts in the seventeenth century. A work of impeccable scholarship and impressive erudition,narrated with gusto and elegance, it is a splendid achievement." --Fernando Cervantes, University of Bristol"Sailing smoothly not only across the academic divides that separate medievalists from modernists, and historians from literary scholars and anthropologists, but also across fourteen centuries and a huge colonial empire, Amy Remensnyder reveals the intriguing and ever-changing figure of La Conquistadora. Mary lives in a continuous tension between the universal and the local, mother of us all incarnated in a bewildering variety of statues, sanctuaries, cults,and epithets. In this fascinating study, Remensnyder shows how, in the context of interreligious struggles, Mary, and her supposed role in these struggles, took on meaning for a wide variety ofpeople." --John Tolan, author of Saint Francis and the Sultan"The ways in which the Virgin Mary's martial associations undergirded Spanish aims of conquest, colonization, and conversion among non-Christians across portions of the medieval and early modern Spanish world are where Amy Remensnyder begins. But, sensitive to her data, they are rarely where she ends up. La Conquistadora will animate the study of Christianizing settings in the early modern Iberian world, and of quite other times and places as well."--Kenneth Mills, co-editor of Lexikon of the Hispanic Baroque"The author's thorough exploration of the wide use of Mary's symbolism by governments and dynasties, particularly the Spanish monarchy, gives this book encyclopedic scope and makes it a fine reference on the numerous roles that Mary has played for civilizations that have artfully deployed her image in settings as diverse as medieval kingdoms and pioneer outposts of the New World."--The Catholic Historical Review