In the mid-nineteenth century, evangelical missionaries from Europe and America played a crucial role as pioneering scholars and cultural intermediaries when their nations compelled Qing dynasty China to submit to the realities of Western expansionism. Several recently published studies of the missionary enterprise in China have greatly expanded our knowledge of the profound historical significance of those who sought to convert the Chinese masses over to their vision of a Christian world order. Jessie Gregory Lutz contributes yet another important dimension to our understanding of this episode in Sino-Western relations by critically analyzing the deeds and accomplishments of one of the most intriguing and controversial figures in the history of the missionary movement in China: Karl F. A. Gützlaff. Drawing skillfully on the vast store of information available in missionary archives, along with the published tracts, periodicals, and books of Gützlaff and his contemporaries in China, Lutz traces the life of her subject from the time of his youth and conversion in Germany to his eventful and productive career as a missionary in Southeast Asia and China. Gützlaff was without a doubt one of the most enigmatic of the early pioneers of the Protestant missionary movement in Asia, and Lutz's insightful analysis of his role and legacy in shaping Sino-Western relations provides a nuanced and sophisticated evaluation of his life and times.

Lutz begins her narrative with a thoughtful and informative overview of the changing context of Sino-Western relations during the nineteenth century and the strains of European Protestantism that shaped Gützlaff's training and conversion at the Berlin Mission Institute. After three years of subsequent study and training at the Dutch Missionary Society in Rotterdam, Gützlaff began his career as a missionary in Southeast Asia, where he would eventually marry the English missionary Maria Newell and serve for a time at a pioneering post in Thailand. During his stay in Southeast Asia, Gützlaff developed a particular interest in the Chinese and China as a promising field of missionary endeavor, and several months after his wife's tragic death from childbirth in February 1831, he arranged passage aboard a Chinese junk as its navigator and physician and traveled along the coast of China, distributing medicines and religious tracts during his stops at various coastal ports. The journal he recorded during this remarkable voyage would eventually be published in the Chinese Repository, a periodical produced by the American missionary E. C. Bridgman, in a series of articles that would firmly establish his reputation as a courageous and intrepid proponent of China missions. In time, Gützlaff became an integral part of the tiny missionary community that existed in Canton and Macao in the years before the Opium War. During this period he contributed significantly to the efforts of the renowned British missionary, Robert Morrison, E. C. Bridgman, and the small number of other early Protestant missionaries who sought tirelessly to convert the Chinese and to win additional support from the West for their varied enterprises. Gützlaff's prodigious talents in both the written language and various dialects of spoken Chinese, along with his flair for publicizing and promoting his dramatic accomplishments, made him a key member of this fledgling community and a major contributor to the many groundbreaking publications in both Chinese and English that would become one of the most fascinating hallmarks of this era in Sino-Western relations.

Gützlaff was also one of the most controversial figures in the history of China missions. His flamboyant personality and eccentric behavior was frequently criticized by his more cautious colleagues, and his relative independence from any supervising missionary organization compelled him to rely occasionally on morally questionable means of support, such as interpreting for English opium smugglers who operated secretly and illegally along the China coast. His long years of service to the English East India Company and later British consular authorities in China would also involve him in what many have criticized as compromising or hypocritical ventures, such as his services as an official for the British during their occupation of coastal territory in the Opium War. The most vocal and damaging criticism of Gützlaff's activities came from his own missionary colleagues during the final years of his career. His extravagant claims regarding the Christian Union that he had helped to establish, which had reportedly converted hundreds, if not thousands, of Chinese in the interior, were refuted by many who came to question Gützlaff's integrity over this and other questionable reports and undertakings. Actually, this portion of Lutz's study is perhaps the most insightful and significant of the entire work, as she explores the possible connections between the Christian Union and the devastating Taiping Rebellion led by the Christian-inspired Chinese revolutionary, Hong Xiuquan. Lutz's incisive analysis of the intriguing connections between these two movements, and her carefully balanced evaluation of Gützlaff's activities at this point in his career, offer a profoundly interesting perspective of the missionary movement and its impact on nineteenth-century China. Indeed, in general, Lutz's compelling study of Gützlaff and his checkered contribution to the shaping of Sino-Western relations adds immensely to our understanding of the complex religious and political dynamics of this pivotal era.