In this beautiful book, Cécile Fromont argues that Christianity, which became important in the Kongo kingdom during the sixteenth century, was neither the result of superficial pragmatism nor an imposition, but stemmed from deep conversion and widespread structures that together formed a new worldview in which Kongo elites freely mixed foreign and local ideas, materials, and practices in a cosmopolitan manner. Diplomatic and religious sources clearly indicate that the Kongo was recognized by European powers as an independent Roman Catholic polity, a status that ended with nineteenth-century evolutionary notions of ‘race’.

Fromont contributes to this familiar argument by drawing upon visual and material sources. Through narrative, dance, dress, festivals, crucifixes, swords, staffs, medals, tombs, wall decoration, statues, churches, and chapels, she analyses Christian culture in the Kongo. Her art historical approach, richly documented in colour and black and white plates, certainly offers a fresh perspective on many issues of Kongo history. With impressive flair, Fromont shows how, in the new worldview of Kongo Christianity, local and foreign thought, materials, and images were brought together to generate new and dynamic forms. Fromont calls these new dynamics ‘spaces of correlation’: cultural creations that offer a domain where ideas and forms from radically different realms are brought together, including all kinds of processes of syncretism, appropriation, and innovation (pp. 15–19). This means that there was no rupture between a ‘native past’ and a ‘colonial present’ as in the Americas. In the Kongo region Christianity was ‘successfully naturalized’. Brutal changes did take place – notably in the realm of the slave trade – but in terms of culture, this was not an ‘assault’ (pp. 74–5). Newly forged international relations provided Kongo elites with ‘a source of new wares, technologies, and philosophies that they selectively welcomed according to their own aesthetics, needs, and curiosity’ (p. 26). The importance of the book's central thesis is enhanced by the conclusion that the resulting Kongo Christianity not only enlarged the universe of Christendom, but also spread beyond west-central Africa to become part of the early modern Atlantic.

Fromont at times stretches her interpretations of material culture too far in order to accommodate her overall thesis. For example, she suggests that the building of churches was the initiative of the Kongo elite alone: ‘Built under the impetus of local rulers, European-style religious buildings participated in making the kingdom's territories a Christian landscape’ (p. 196). In fact in a number of cases, the evidence points to the role of foreign clergy in initiating the building process. Similarly in her use of archaeological evidence she concludes that bodies were ‘often’ deposited in the tombs ‘positioned as if alive’ and ‘often’ outfitted with swords of status (p. 183). Yet we know from some fifty excavated graves in the Lower Congo province that only eleven graves contained swords or sabres, and only twelve bodies allowed for an interpretation of the bodies' position: none of these was ‘positioned as if alive’. These interpretative stretches are exacerbated by the limited annotation in the book: Fromont only refers to the archival manuscripts, not to the numerous published editions of the manuscripts. The Art of Conversion contains no general bibliography, rendering references particularly difficult to trace.

Nevertheless the new way she looks at the missionary watercolours, the architectural remains, and the material evidence offers excellent insight into Kongo elite cultures, rare in African history before the twentieth century. Her approach to interpreting and combining these sources is highly original. Overall, this innovative book contributes significantly to research on the Kongo kingdom, its relationship to the Americas and to Central Africa, and its place in World History more broadly.