This book offers the first biography of Catholic priest and radical social critic Ivan Illich, who skewered the institutions of the West in the 1970s.

Catholic priest and social critic Ivan Illich is best known for books that skewered the dominant institutions of the West in the 1970s. Of the two periods of Illich's time in Mexico, the 'Catholic period' from 1961 to 1967 has received little attention, but in many ways it was the foundation and source of the better-known 'secular period' from 1967 to 1976. This book clarifies both periods and explains the relationship between them.

Catholic priest and radical social critic Ivan Illich is best known for books like Deschooling Society and Medical Nemesis that skewered the dominant institutions of the West in the 1970s. Although commissioned in 1961 by American bishops to run a missionary training center in Cuernavaca, Mexico, Illich emerged as one of the major critics of the missionary movement. As he became a more controversial figure, his center evolved into CIDOC (Centro Intercultural de Documentación), an informal university that attracted a diverse group of intellectuals and seekers from around the world. They came to Illich's center to learn Spanish, to attend seminars, and to sit at the feet of Illich, whose relentless criticism of the Catholic Church and modern Western culture resonated with the revolutionary spirit of the times. His 1967 article, "The Seamy Side of Charity," a harsh attack on the American missionary effort in Latin America, and other criticisms of the Church led to a trial at the Vatican in 1968, after which he left the priesthood. Illich's writings struck at the foundations of western society, and envisioned utopian transformations in the realms of education, transportation, medicine, and economics. He was an inspiration to a generation of liberation theologians and other left-wing intellectuals. In The Prophet of Cuernavaca Todd Hartch traces the development of Illich's ideas from his work as a priest through his later secular period, offering one of the first book-length historical treatments of his thought in English.

In the Christmas season of 1913, Grace Knight's elegant old hotel on Cuernavaca's main plaza is the place to see and be seen. Mexico's landed aristocracy, members of the foreign community, wealthy tourists, and young army officers with their wives flock to the Colonial. Under the ballroom's hundreds of twinkling electric lights, they dance to old Spanish tunes and to the new beat of ragtime. Outside the city, in the shadows of the valley's two volcanoes, a company of federal soldiers raids the hacienda of Don Miguel Sanche, hunting for men sympathetic to the cause of the charismatic rebel leader, Emiliano Zapata. In a hailstorm of rifle fire, sixteen-year-old Angela Sanchez's life takes a horrifying turn. After the soldiers leave, she returns to the ruins of her family's home. She collects her father's old Winchester carbine, gathers the survivors among his workers, and rides off in search of Zapata's Liberating Army of the South. Last Train from Cuernavaca is the story of two strong and ambitious women. For the sake of love, honor, and survival, they become swept up in a Revolution that almost destroys them and their country. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

“Shines a floodlight on a topic that has been cloaked in obscurity . . . a landmark work in both intellectual history and political theory” (The Wall Street Journal). Philosophical esotericism—the practice of communicating one’s unorthodox thoughts “between the lines”—was a common practice until the end of the eighteenth century. Despite its long and well-documented history, however, esotericism is often dismissed today as a rare occurrence. But by ignoring esotericism, we risk cutting ourselves off from a full understanding of Western philosophical thought. Walking readers through both an ancient (Plato) and a modern (Machiavelli) esoteric work, Arthur M. Melzer explains what esotericism is—and is not. It relies not on secret codes, but simply on a more intensive use of familiar rhetorical techniques like metaphor, irony, and insinuation. Melzer explores the various motives that led thinkers in different times and places to engage in this strange practice, while also exploring the motives that lead more recent thinkers not only to dislike and avoid this practice but to deny its very existence. In the book’s final section, “A Beginner’s Guide to Esoteric Reading,” Melzer turns to how we might once again cultivate the long-forgotten art of reading esoteric works. The first comprehensive, book-length study of the history and theoretical basis of philosophical esotericism, Philosophy Between the Lines is “a treasure-house of insight and learning. It is that rare thing: an eye-opening book . . . By making the world before Enlightenment appear as strange as it truly was, [Melzer] makes our world stranger than we think it is” (George Kateb, Professor of Politics, Emeritus, at Princeton University). “Brilliant, pellucid, and meticulously researched.” —City Journal

Predominantly Catholic for centuries, Latin America is still largely Catholic today, but the religious continuity in the region masks great changes that have taken place in the past five decades. In fact, it would be fair to say that Latin American Christianity has been transformed definitively in the years since the Second Vatican Council. Religious change has not been obvious because its transformation has not been the sudden and massive growth of a new religion, as in Africa and Asia. It has been rather a simultaneous revitalization and fragmentation that threatened, awakened, and ultimately brought to a greater maturity a dormant and parochial Christianity. New challenges from modernity, especially in the form of Protestantism and Marxism, ultimately brought forth new life. In The Rebirth of Latin American Christianity, Todd Hartch examines the changes that have swept across Latin America in the last fifty years, and situates them in the context of the growth of Christianity in the global South.

Universal education through schooling is not feasible. It would be no more feasible if it were attempted by means of alternative institutions built on the style of present schools. Neither new attitudes of teachers toward their pupil nor the proliferation of educational hardware or software (in classroom or bedroom), nor finally the attempt to expand the pedagogue's responsibility until it engulfs his pupul's lifetimes will deliver universal education. The current search for new educational funnels must be reversed into the search for their institutional inverse: educational webs which heighten the opportunity for each one to transform each moment of his living into one of learning, sharing, and caring. We hope to contribute concepts needed by those who conduct such counterfoil research on education - and also to those who seek alternatives to other establisehd service industries. Ivan Illich was born in Vienna in 1926. He studied theology and philosophy at the Gregorian University in Rome and obtained a PhD in history at the University of Salzburg. He came to the United States in 1951, where he served as assistant pastor in an Irish-Puerto Rican parish in New York. From 1956 to 1960 he was assigned as vice rector to the Catholic University of Puerto Rico, where he organized an intensive training center for American preists in Latin American culture. Illich was a co-founder of the widely known and controversial Center for Intercultural Documentation (CIDOC) in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and since 1964 he has directed research seminars on "Institutional Alternatives in a Technological Society," with special focus on Latin America. Ivan Illich's writings have appeared in The New York Review, The Saturday Review, Esprit, Kuvsbuch, Siempre, America, Commonweal, Epreuves, and Tern PS Modernes.