An excellent book by a very gifted scholar.This is no dry academic treatise, though it certainly is academic. With a lively style that vividly brings the Jesuit martyrs and the legacy of their memories to life, Dr. Anderson very effectively traces the development of their memory and cult, both from its origin in the moments following their very martyrdom to the present.Across the span of nearly 400 years, their symbolic power continues to invite redefinition and adoption. For example, in the 19th and early 20th Centuries, the Martyrs' memory became vehicles to articulate desired identities. In Canada, this meant a separate French Canadian identity as a distinguishing mark. In America, it meant assimilation and inclusion for all, Protestant or Catholic, under a unifying banner of common American-ness because three of them perished within the nation's boundaries.Today, the meaning of the Martyrs continues to change, even reverse. In Canada, that reversal is seen in recreating their symbolic meaning in new ways that are more abstract. Their work with the native populations as a sign of outreach is stressed, not their physical suffering, and the Martyrs become unifying symbols for all Canadians. The Martyrs' deaths and religious cult are disinvested of the emotional content fueling their symbolic power. In America, in contrast, for many their influence now rests in their physical example. The Martyrs symbolize a faithful witness unto death as they engaged a contemporary culture hostile to missionary designs and beliefs. Here, the emotional content of the Martyrs narrative is retained as a unifying bond yet is reinterpreted to the present and re-energizes as it also inspires and consoles.For each group, the symbolic power of the North American Martyrs is valorized with meanings drawn from the present and thus redefined in more contextual, if still spiritual, terms. Her interviews with religious leaders on both sides of the geographic and ethnic borders are particularly illuminating in this regard. The Martyrs missions and deaths then take on multiple, at times contradictory, meanings across various groups competing to define them-- as reflected in the canonization of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, as unwanted intruders into natives' worlds, as focal points to rally native populations to return to their pre-contact traditions, as illustrations of how the Church historically reaches out to others, as indictments of the Church for prejudicially not canonizing fellow native Martyrs who died similarly, and as rallying points for transforming contemporary culture through the power of their spiritual testimony.In dealing with these understandably sensitive topics, Dr. Anderson is balanced and thorough. The reader leaves with a deeper understanding of how religious memory is dynamic and reflective of broader trends within the social world of those who strive to shape it.It speaks to the quality of this book, that one leaves it reflecting more deeply upon the implications for our own time. What is the future of the Martyrs as religious symbols, as their human elements (death, loyalty, love, sacrifice, fear, anger, etc. to which people easily relate) are dis-incarnated from their memorialization by religious elites and replaced by more abstract ideals? Will there be enough residual emotion to capture sufficient veneration that the Martyrs can be redefined again at all? To what degree will downplaying the material display of their martyrdoms (as at the Canadian shrine and less so at the American) neutralize their emotional power? Will their cult soon perish as it loses its vibrancy, and what are the implications for this in terms of devotion? Will people's emotions shift to another religious symbol that retains its power to draw them together in veneration? Or, will the symbolic power of the Martyrs be colonized and defined by grassroots movements as a counterpoise to elite redefinitions noted earlier?Every chapter is well done. But in particular, her first two chapters set up the remainder of her analysis. She illustrates how the Jesuits' and Iroquois' competing definitions of suffering and death complemented each other in such a way as to lead to the near inevitable result of the Martyrs' deaths. This sets into motion the underlying dynamic of her book: How different groups define the real activities, deaths, and memories of the Martyrs and then mold them into symbolic vehicles around which their own interests solidify and gather momentum.She assembles an enormous amount of material and draws her conclusions from multiple sources--the Jesuit Relations, correspondence, visual analyses of the Canadian and American shrines, and even some fieldwork and interviews with contemporary Canadian and American devotees and disparagers.Truly, an excellent and stimulating book.