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White Men's God

The Extraordinary Story of Missionaries in Africa

White Men's God

The Extraordinary Story of Missionaries in Africa

This item is a print on demand title and will be dispatched in 1-3 weeks.

Hardback

£50.00

Publisher: ABC-CLIO
ISBN: 9781846450327
Number of Pages: 350
Published: 30/11/2008
Width: 15.2 cm
Height: 22.9 cm

The story of Christian missionaries in Africa is an extraordinary one, a central drama of cultural encounter unfolding over two hundred years and profoundly changing Africa in the process. It is also the story of thousands of individual men and women from Europe and the USA, and of millions of Africans, whose lives were altered. Central to the story is the Christian faith, the ways in which missionaries took it to Africa, and the ways in which the Africans accepted (or rejected) it. But missionising had a much broader impact than the religious one, relating to travel and exploration, medical care, education and imperialism. Also bound up in the story are issues of race (and racism), commerce, politics and warfare.

Although there have been scholarly works on parts of the story, this is the first general history, and the first history to provide a broad sweep. The documentary record is very rich, and the author has drawn on many texts, of and about missionaries. A preface outlines European contact with Africa prior to 1700 (including Jesuit travel in Ethiopia), but the narrative proper begins with the earliest attempts by German and English Protestant missionary societies to set up missions in West Africa, a strategy which related to the end of slavery and the notion of repatriation for ex-slaves. Subsequent chapters examine the activities of a whole range of other societies in different parts of Africa. Throughout, the narrative returns to the key themes of religion, race, culture and commerce played out in the arenas of conversion, education and medical care.

Acknowledgements Preface Chapter White Men's God Chapter The Foundation of Happiness Chapter Knowing One's Place as a Negro Chapter A Crucifix and a Breviary Chapter Stolen Country Chapter The Cheapest and Best Military Posts Chapter The Rewards of Great Sanctity Chapter Pitching Tents in the Interior Chapter Losing It or Ruling It Chapter If This Is Civilisation, What Is Barbarism? Chapter Black Men's God Chapter Keep the Flag Flying Chapter The Path in the Thicket Timeline Maps Bibliography Notes About the Author Index

Martin Ballard

Martin Ballard is an independent scholar and writer.

"This is a broad, general history of the Christian missionary movement in Africa. The author naturally pays ample attention to the different Protestant and Catholic missionary groups and their successes and failures in their stated missions, but also sets their activities within wider social and political contexts of slavery and abolition, European imperialism, travel and exploration, and medical and educational change, placing the key themes of religion, race, culture, and commerce at the

heart of the narrative." -

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