Louis 'David' Riel: Prophet of the New World (Goodread Biographies) - Softcover

Flanagan, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0887801188 ISBN 13: 9780887801181

Publisher: Goodread Biography, 1983

Synopsis

ABBREVIATIONS
PREFACE

1.Preparation

2. Testing

3. The Prophet in Chains

4. The New Religion

5. Waiting

6. The Prophet in Arms

7.Disappointment and Hope

8.A Comparative View

NOTES
INDEX

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Louis Riel believed that on 8 December 1875 he received a divine commission authorizing him to save the metis and reform the Catholic Church. He was a prophet, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and the metis were the new chosen people. A new branch of the Catholic Church would be founded in North America, with its first Holy See in Montreal and its second in Riel's birthplace of St Vital. When Riel expressed these views in 1876, he was committed to a lunatic asylum. After his release, he suppressed his ideas for several years, only to reveal them again to his metis followers during the North-West Rebellion. The Rebellion thus became as much a religious as a political movement; to the end of his life Riel believed himself a prophet, and he went to his death thinking that he, like Christ, would be resurrected on the third day. Earlier writers about Louis Riel noted his religious beliefs but did not take them seriously. They usually dismissed Riel's attempt to found a new religion as a symptom of a deranged mind. Thomas Flanagan takes Riel's religion seriously and analyses it using categories developed in the literature about millenarian movements. He shows that Riel's religion, far from being simply individual madness, is typical of the nativistic and millenarian movements described by one author as the 'religions of the oppressed.'. This is also a biography, tracing Riel's thinking on religious subjects from his childhood to the end of his life and paying particular attention to events that influenced his thinking. This developmental approach is necessary because Riel's ideas changed frequently; he never arrived at a fixed 'system.'.

About the Author:

THOMAS FLANAGAN teaches political science at the University of Calgary. He is the editor of The Diaries of Louis Riel and Louis Riel: Poesies de Jeunesse.

About this edition

• Publisher: Goodread Biography
• Publication date: 1983
• ISBN 10: 0887801188
• ISBN 13: 9780887801181
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 215