The last ten years have seen an enormous growth of studies in the field of the expansion of Christianity to China and Central Asia via the Church of the East, documented between the seventh and the early fourteenth century. This interest, arising from a curious mix of Western interest in “non-Western” Christianities, Chinese interest in local Christian history, and the increasing possibilities of East-West cooperation, resulted in a volume edited by Dietmar Winkler and Li Tang. To some extent, the collection, as the cover claims, includes some “cutting edge” research: many articles introduce recent finds (Central-Asian grave stones, the Luoyang stele discovered in 2006), new interpretations of older finds (notably the Xian Fu stele in at least five different contributions), and attempts to wider contextual interpretations of specific episodes. However, despite the merits of some of these articles, the volume as a whole is disappointing. This is partly due to the near absence of editing, leaving the reader with the abundant use of the term “Nestorian” despite the editors' rejection of it, and conflicting interpretations of various issues (for example, who was Alopen who was instrumental in formalizing Christianity in China in the seventh century?). More importantly, the volume fails to systematically address the larger issues at stake: what kind of Christianity emerged in Central Asia and China; how was it related to Syriac Christianity in the Middle East (knowledge of which is lacking in many of the articles); and how can this field proceed in view of the admittedly restricted number of primary sources? It is a missed opportunity that the strengths of the individual scholars have not been put toward some collective thinking about these matters.