Amanda Porterfield | Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 187 words from this article are provided below; about 365 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

Amanda Porterfield | Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Nothing but Christ: Rufus Anderson and the Ideology of Protestant Foreign Missions. By Paul William Harris. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. x, 204 pp. $39.95, ISBN 0-19-513172-X.)

In order to appreciate fully what Paul William Harris has achieved in this book, readers should know what it is like to confront the massive jumble of documents related to the work of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). Aiming at the transformation of every dark corner of the heathen world, the endeavors of the ABCFM were nothing if not ambitious or far-flung. Voluminous missionary writings involve references to dozens of different cultures, each in the process of historical change and many in the midst of crisis and transformation. To arrive at even the most rudimentary understanding of nineteenth-century American Protestant missionary activity around the world, one has to grapple not only with the many different cultural situations in which missionaries were engaged but also with the various agendas, squabbles, and perspectives of the missionaries themselves, whose depictions of other people were always colored by their own ambitions, temperaments, and principles. . . .

There are about 365 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.