Copyright holder: Tyndale University, 3377 Bayview Ave., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2M 3S4 Att.: Library Director, J. William Horsey Library Copyright: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. Copyright license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License Citation: Faught, C. Brad. Review of Converting Colonialism: Visions and Realities in Mission History, 1706-1914, edited by Dana L. Robert. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B.Eerdmans, 2008. Anglican and Episcopal History 77, no. 4 (2008): 449-450. ***** Begin Content ****** TYNDALE UNIVERSITY 3377 Bayview Avenue Toronto, ON M2M 3S4 TEL: 416.226.6620 www.tyndale.ca Note: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. Faught, C. Brad. Review of Converting Colonialism: Visions and Realities in Mission History, 1706-1914, edited by Dana L. Robert. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 2008. Anglican and Episcopal History 77, no. 4 (2008): 449-450. 449 BOOK REVIEWS Converting Colonialism: Visions and Realities in Mission History, 1706-1914. Edited by Dana L. Robert. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2008, Pp. x, 304. $30.00.) The volume under consideration here is another in the excellent series, Studies in the History of Christian Missions. Numbering fourteen entries, this series has done much to re-order the study of the last two centuries of missionary history and in so doing rescue the subject from the usual reductionism of post-colonial theorists, as well as the recurring 450 ANGLICAN AND EPISCOPAL HISTORY triumphalism of the first generation of missionary historiography. Ca- pably edited by Dana Robert, Converting Colonialism battens together nine wide-ranging essays covering the years from early in the eighteenth century until the outbreak of the First World War, the high period of European empire. (One says battens because the main weakness of the volume—characteristic of all such works—is the disparate nature of its offerings.) Grouped around a rather slippery theme, "Visions and Re- alities," the book finds itself struggling to maintain thematic unity. If read mainly as discrete pieces rather that parts of a putative whole, the essays make a marked contribution to the field. Take, for example, Andrew Porter's essay (60-85) on the interplay between millennial evan- gelicalism and Islam in the nineteenth century, both in Africa and other regions. One would hazard a guess that no other historian has linked these two world religions in quite the same way before. The result, in Porter's sure hands, is a careful probing of how evangelicalism's initial perceptions of Islam changed over time from one of serial denunciation to that of a desire for knowledge and some measure of accommodation. Another key essay is that written by R. G. Tiedemann (206-41) in which he traces the remarkable expansion of Christianity in nineteenth- century China, which coincided with the reinvigoration of Roman Catholic missions and the explosive growth of Protestant ones. More needed to be said here of the influence of the fatally charismatic Hong Xiuquan and the Taiping Rebellion on their mediation of western Chris- tianity in Imperial China, and certainly Jonathan D. Spence's important work on Hong ( God's Chinese Son: The Taping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan, 1996) should not have been ignored. But Tiedemann's other- wise close reading of the sources and persuasive conclusions make for excellent history. The other essays covering topics ranging from India to East, West, and Southern Africa, all investigate informatively the varied ways in which western-based Christianity interacted with local religion, politics, and culture, as well as with the metropolitan forces of mission board and imperial government. As a means to understand what may be called the "ideology of mis- sion" for the imperial and proto-industrial age, this volume serves a very valuable purpose. The writers show clearly that the chief characteristic of missionary history is the ineluctable presence of the "law of unin- tended consequences." In other words, wherever there was missionary contact, visions were one thing, realities another. C. Brad Faught Tyndale University College ***** This is the end of the e-text. This e-text was brought to you by Tyndale University, J. William Horsey Library - Tyndale Digital Collections *****