Are you considering teaching or assigning Reagan’s Gun-Toting Nuns? Here are some questions the book addresses:

• How did Catholicism affect Ronald Reagan’s policy toward Central America?
• How did liberation theology affect revolutionary movements in Central America?
• What role have missionaries played in U.S. foreign relations? How have missionaries’ experiences abroad affected their views of U.S. foreign policy?
• How have religious actors been involved in human rights activism?
• How have women religious (nuns) been involved in shaping U.S. foreign policy?
• How have ideas about gender affected debates about U.S. foreign relations?
• Where is the line (if there is one) between someone’s religious and political identity?
• How can past U.S. involvement in Nicaragua and El Salvador help us to better understand the conditions in those countries today and U.S. policy toward them?

The book also raises larger issues about doing history, which I would be happy to discuss with your class:

• How do historians emotionally handle researching and writing about violence, including sexual violence?
• Where is the line between sharing that violence to illuminate the past and possibly exploiting someone else’s pain?
• How can historians do oral history when the people sharing their stories do not want to be named and/or quoted?
• What are the advantages and potential drawbacks of historians having personal connections to the material they research?

Email me theresa.keeley@louisville.edu