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The method followed by Lanternari in the research, published in 1960, is based on the historic method as understood by Benedetto Croce, the philosopher who dominated the Italian cultural scene in the first half of the twentieth century and is opposed to the revival of religious studies, initiated by Raffaele Pettazzoni, which is often associated with the work of Lanternari. The Lanternari approach and the themes of his book Movimenti religiosi libertà e di salvezza were at the center of the national and international debate in the post-war era, and more specifically exchanges on popular cultures and religions (through confrontation with the works of Antonio Gramsci and Ernesto De Martino), but also on religion in colonial situation (through the works of Georges Balandier). The article relates the binary interpretive models that characterize this book (oppressor and oppressed, dominant and dominated, colonial and colonized peoples) with the expectations of the political and cultural time of macro-alliances. It concludes with the question of his legacy today in terms of challenges to the history and anthropology of religion.