The Nun and the Volcano - Revolutionary Histories in Cold War Guatemala

In 1960s Guatemala, a nun and her students joined forces with communities in one of the country's most remote areas, striving together to bring justice and revolution to the Indigenous highlands. Betsy Konefal weaves together archival sources, personal letters, and more than one hundred interviews to tell this compelling story, illustrating how ideas about rights and revolution took on meaning and urgency as students from the city came face-to-face with injustice in the countryside. Konefal unearths the rich evolution of a transformative Catholicism that began years before Liberation Theology had a name, exploring a time of hope and determination shared by young people in Guatemala and across Latin America. Her examination of 1960s Catholic activism from the ground up reveals the consequential roles of nuns, parish priests, students, and community members, as powerful ideas about revolution fueled a veritable eruption in Guatemala's highlands.