John C. Pinheiro's Missionaries of Republicanism: A Religious History of the Mexican-American War deals with the ways in which religion and war they play in the Americas (mainly in the United States) in the mid-19th century. Compare the dominant Catholicism of Mexico to the dominant Protestantism of the United States and what led to the Mexican-American War. I found this book quite difficult to follow due to Pinheiro's use of complicated sentence structure and diction (a weakness). I thought he did a good amount of research before writing the book Missionaries of Republicanism without making it sound like nonsense (a strong point). But in some cases I believe it does not provide adequate evidence for its claims (a weakness). However, it does a good job of describing the context and chronological history of events that occurred in the Americas regarding religion and the Mexican-American War without feeling like you're reading a history book (a strength). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay One weakness that I believe is presented in this book is that Pinheiro tries to sound too "fancy" by using big, complicated words that honestly sometimes confused me or I didn't know what they meant. I felt that many times throughout the book I had to stop and look up the word in an online dictionary or thesaurus because I had no idea what they meant. This made my reading time almost double, and I had to reread sentences and paragraphs just to make sure I understood the context. For example, “In this book the designation “anti-Catholic” does not refer to a person who disagreed doctrinally with Roman Catholic theology, ecclesiology, and eschatology. Therefore, Protestant efforts aimed simply at converting Catholics to a Protestant Christian view of reality cannot qualify as an ideology worthy of the name “anti-Catholicism,” since Catholics obviously hoped to convert Protestants, and that alone would not qualify as anti-Protestantism." (4-5). Honestly these two sentences are so confusing that they will leave anyone stunned. When in fact in this book it should simply be said that anti-Catholicism refers to a person who does not agree with the values and structure of Roman Catholicism and with its belief in the final destiny of the soul after death. Therefore, Protestants who sought to convert Catholics to Protestant Christianity should not be called anti-Catholics because Catholics who also hoped to convert Protestants should not be called anti-Protestants. If he had written statements like this, analyzing this book would not have been so difficult and would have been an easier read. However, one strength that Pinheiro shows is that I believe he did adequate research before writing this book because it has a good amount of citations. and cited statements in support of his writing without feeling like he was simply inflating his work. “Beecher called on all true Republicans and Protestants to end their complacency and achieve two goals: stop Catholic immigration through legislation and establish Protestant schools and churches in the West8” (21). There are many statements similar to this throughout the book that are cited and show that he is giving credit for his research to the people who deserve it. But at the same time another weakness that I found is that there were some statements that I believe.
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