Mexican Exodus by Julia Young OUP, £47.99 At the dawn of the 20th century Mexico possessed a “culture that was thoroughly steeped in Catholic devotion, ritual and practice”. Large swathes of the population were therefore devastated by what happened next. Following the revolution of 1910, anti-clerical sentiment soared and increasingly debilitating legislation, aimed at the Church, arrived on the statute book. By 1926, some of the faithful had lost all patience and a dramatic rebellion ensued. The rebels were known as Cristeros owing to their battle cry: “¡Viva Cristo Rey!” – “Long Live Christ the King!” As Julia Young explains, we should not romanticise the Cristero War: not all the combatants were religiously motivated – numerous bandits and opportunists seized their moment – and, even among those who held Christian banners aloft, the “vision of sacrifice and victimhood at the hands of the government could sometimes mask the Cristeros’ own role as aggressors”. For many, though, there was a legitimate sense of fighting the good fight. Thanks to Young’s splendid book we also learn that the repercussions of the war were more wide-ranging than many historians have realised. This was largely down to the tens of thousands of exiles who either fled or were banished from Mexico and headed to the United States. Members of this diaspora worked inordinately hard to rally support for the Cristero cause: establishing organisations, cajoling politicians and flooding the presses with tales of outrage. Some took more radical action, from gun-running to espionage. The overall impact on the conflict was limited but, on Young’s account, the process had a profound impact on the identity of Mexican communities in the American barrios, from El Paso to Los Angeles to Chicago. Even today, Catholic families revere the memory of Cristero ancestors who perished, regarding them as martyrs, regardless of their cause of death, and regardless of whether the Church sees them in the same light. Young relates this “transnational narrative of migration, militancy, defeat and resilience” with great energy and a wealth of fresh archival discoveries at her back.