The historiography of Protestant mission is renewing itself. From multiple perspectives (cultural encounters, knowledge transfer, economic development, relations with abolitionism) mission is being re-evaluated by various academic disciplines in a growing number of studies. What they have in common is a much more refined approach that breaks free from the older denominational and often hagiographic studies as well as what Dana Robert described as the ‘“icy grip” of the colonialism paradigm’. Mission is increasingly understood as a highly complex and often paradoxical enterprise, in which missionary relations with the imperial powers could be both antagonistic and symbiotic, and in which Western encounters with indigenous peoples are taking into account their agency in missionary history. Even so, three perspectives in mission history are often lacking: a global comparative view that transcends the limitations of nationalist historiography; a comparative view that transcends denominational historiography; and a longue durée examination that incorporates both the early modern and the modern eras. This volume makes a stout effort to overcome all these three shortcomings. It was edited by Jenna Gibbs, whose research focuses on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century slavery and its connection with mission and empire. The roots of the volume are a 2014 conference, and as such publications go, it has its limitations. Altogether though, I found this a well-researched and stimulating publication.

The volume is in three parts, preceded by a useful introduction by the editor. The first part deals with early modern Atlantic mission and focuses on the nexus between slavery and mission. It consists of chapters by Travis Glasson (‘Anglican mission amongst the Mohawks’), Sünne Juterczenka (‘Quaker mission and slavery’), Jenna Gibbs (‘Moravian mission and slavery’) and Jan Hüsgen (‘Moravian mission and slavery’). The second part deals with empire and reform in the nineteenth century, and consists of chapters by Felix Jean-Louis (‘The Episcopalian Church in Haïti’), Leonardo Falcón (‘The Episcopalian Church in Cuba’) and Andrea Major (‘The British India Society’). The final part is on communication and modernity, and has chapters by Gisela Mettele (‘Global communication of the Moravians’), Karolin Wetjen (‘The Leipzig Mission in East Africa and modernity’) and Lindsey Maxwell (‘Pentecostal press networks and modernity’). The three parts seem eminently relevant to the topic of global mission, but, as often is the case with such volumes, the categories seem to come out of the actual themes of the chapters rather than from a preconceived overall key idea in the volume as whole. In dealing with slavery, nationalism, imperialism, reform, communication and modernity, the volume is perhaps biting off more than it can chew and branches out in various directions. Even so, several chapters are mutually connected (for instance, Gibbs and Hüsgen, and Wetjen and Maxwell study similar topics from different angles) and the three parts show a fair degree of internal coherence.

The volume succeeds in its attempt to rethink relations between mission and empire and provide a much more nuanced understanding. Take, indeed, Gibbs's own article, on Christian Latrobe, secretary of the Moravian global missions in the decades around 1800. Whereas the Moravians have had the reputation of speaking out against slavery, in practice the situation was a lot more complicated, and Gibbs shows how Latrobe had to negotiate the position of the Moravians in a complex forcefield. In order to continue their missionary work amongst enslaved people, the Moravians, aware of their precarious position in England, tended to conform to colonial law that legitimised slavery, despite the fact that many of them sympathised with abolition. This inherent tension increased during the Napoleonic wars, when communications with the colonies were hampered and abolition was associated with revolutionary ideology. As Hüsgen explains in his chapter, the Moravians were themselves economically dependent on slave labour for the upkeep of their American estates. Both in the Americas and in South Africa, Moravians wrestled with their often untenable apolitical stance. There was a paradox in their desire to speak out against imperial domination and slavery and their desire not to antagonise the colonial government. It is in chapters like these that the volume does succeed in connecting mission to wider themes of imperialism, slavery and reform. And it is with this micro-historical approach, through the lens of individuals, that the majority of the chapters in this volume lay bare the entanglements of mission with all these themes.

But precisely this microhistorical method also has its shortcomings. Although the essentially prosopographical approach provides the reader with a well-grounded empirical and nuanced understanding of the complexities of mission, the collective series of complex mini-biographies do not yield an overall understanding of global mission. In this context, perhaps the most important limitation is that the otherwise admirable and called-for longue durée approach of this volume does not fully deliver. The chapters are ordered chronologically, ranging from the 1730s to the 1930s, which is a somewhat unusual periodisation anyway that seems to be dictated by the coincidence of the papers that were submitted rather than any conscious design. This is important, especially in the light of the editor's own statement that global mission obviously continues into the present. More important than mere periodisation, it would be interesting to understand how mission transformed after the 1790s and adapted to the various phases of empire, although it is true that a few chapters straddle the early modern and modern periods.

Where the volume does succeed is in overcoming denominational and national perspectives. Authors also successfully connect the local to the global, pointing out how local missions or individuals were caught in global and sometimes interdenominational networks in which they operated. Through the stories of missionary ‘managers’, the importance of the interconnectedness of early modern and modern global mission becomes clear. And it is in these myriad entanglements that the vulnerability of global Protestant mission networks shows in the need to straddle between the spiritual goal of conversion and the worldly matrix of power constellations. But it also shows how Protestant global mission, precisely through its network-like structure, was able to communicate, adapt and expand.

All in all this is a very solid volume of essays, each of which is well-researched and a stimulating read. The volume sheds light on the multifarious relations of Protestant mission with imperialism, slavery, reform and politics. It is also an inspiring basis for continuous research on the deep history of global Protestant mission.