"Pensado does path-breaking work to reveal why and how Catholics of all ideological stripes became a formidable opposition to Mexico’s PRI dictatorship—both important questions to explore as Mexico’s democratic transition (2000-present) comes under greater scrutiny."
— The Journal of Social History
"An indispensable study of the Cold War in Latin America, for Pensado treats Catholicism (and religion, more generally) seriously, not simply as a reactionary or declining force."
— Journal of Latin American Studies
"Pensado offers an innovative cultural history of Mexico’s long 1960s (1956-1976) through a religious lens. Each of his nine chapters places Catholic individuals like Marroquín at the center of his narrative. Together, these figures amount to a collective biography of Catholicism’s multiple responses—rejection, acceptance, tolerance, participation—to a world and a country undergoing profound cultural, political, and social change."
"Pensado narrates Mexico’s October 2, 1968 protest and government repression from a unique vantage point: the inside of a church. . . .In narrating this iconic moment from the interior of a church, Pensado underscores the centrality of the Catholic Church, its cultural, intellectual, and political traditions, to twentieth-century Mexico. . . .[A] deep history of a crucial but understudied element of modern Mexico."
— Pacific Historical Review
"Pensado has written a book that presents a unique perspective because he was able to locate films that were long censored in Mexico, and other documents that were not widely distributed. This book deserves a place in university libraries, particularly those with a focus on Latin American religion and politics."
— Catholic Library World
"In a thoughtful exploration of Catholic participants in Cold-War-era Mexican politics and counterculture, Jaime Pensado lays bare many historiographic misconceptions. Rejecting notions of a religious worldview marked by its homogeneity, institutional rigidity, and reactionary politics, Pensado instead persuasively demonstrates the dynamic roles of Catholic thinkers. Using comprehensive evidence, he offers a vision of a sophisticated countercultural moment."
— The Americas
"Love and Despair reveals an entirely unexamined side of the Mexican Global Sixties, one that has been hiding in plain sight. In bringing to light Catholic responses to countercultural practices and youth politics, Jaime M. Pensado highlights the central role of religious thought and actors in the democratization of Mexican culture and society."—Eric Zolov, author of The Last Good Neighbor: Mexico in the Global Sixties
"A magnificent, much-needed analysis of Mexico's Catholic youth movements during the tumultuous Sixties and their relationship to Catholic transnational mobilizations and to the wider Mexican Left."—Mary Kay Vaughan, Professor Emerita of History, University of Maryland, College Park
"Pensado's book is a brilliant historical palimpsest. Where once well-engraved stories of secular youth rebellion had been deeply etched in conventional memory, Pensado has recast the era as one crafted also by progressive journalists, university students, intellectuals, and filmmakers—all Catholic—who left indelible marks on Mexico in the Global Sixties. With an expansive border-crossing vision and a creative eye, Pensado defies anyone to make the now outdated claim that Mexico's counterculture was not equal parts Catholic in its making."—Stephen J. C. Andes, author of The Mysterious Sofía: One Woman's Mission to Save Catholicism in Twentieth-Century Mexico
"Vivid, incisive, and innovative, Love and Despair reinterprets the Sixties in Mexico. Through an astute analysis of film, oral interviews, and textual material, Pensado opens a window into the lives, fears, views, and hopes of a wide cast of Mexican Catholics as they confronted and interpreted the startling cultural and moral changes of their times."—Julia G. Young, author of Mexican Exodus: Emigrants, Exiles, and Refugees of the Cristero War
