'This volume bears eloquent testimony to the vitality and sophistication of contemporary scholarship on the political significance of Christian missions in nineteenth and twentieth-century Africa...a clear implication of this volume is the extent to which mainstream missions, despite their almost invariable support for the "civilizing" goals of empire, proved, in the long run, subversive to British colonial rule, through their piecemeal erosion of the fabric of custom on which indirect rule was premissed...The central irony of the story is that the First World War, while it intensified attempts of the Colonial Office to consolidate its control of missions, was also the prelude to the church growth that ultimately dissolved the structures through which missionary control of African churches was exercised.' - Brian Stanley in English Historical Review 'Co-editor Michael Twaddle in his Part One "Introductory", superbly summarizes each of the twenty contributions within a long historical stream.' - Garth N Jones in Journal of Third World Studies 'This is an important area of study that is still working itself out. The rich, and often fascinating, accounts of the work of Christian missionaries contained in this book make a useful contribution to our understanding of their work and impact.' - D.J. Shaw in Development Policy Review 'This book covers an enormous geographical range, and a similarly lengthy historical period.' - Paul Gifford in Africa '...it represents a useful quarry and will provoke readers to ask comparative questions.' - Andrew Porter in Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History '...they draw a telling conclusion: Christian missionary endeavour has been of immense importance in reshaping social and economic life in these states-but the missionary era is far from over.' - Aylward Shorter in The International Bulletin of Missionary Research