El Templo Y La Escuela

A well-documented, impressively written study of Waldensian immigration to Uruguay. Hardworking and pious without being fanatical, the Waldensians came to the Plata in the mid-19th century to escape the poverty of their Piedmontese villages, and proceeded to establish a series of prosperous agricultural colonies along the río Uruguay. As the author indicates, these settlements were models of social cohesion, where school and church played equal roles in everyday life –Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.