Much has been written about the foreign missionary enterprise in China, but the indigenous dimension has been largely ignored in the scholarly literature. Xi Lian's comprehensive study of the Chinese independent churches and certain prominent self-supporting Chinese evangelists and pastors has admirably rectified this situation. In addition to the obvious English-language sources, he has made excellent use of rare Chinese-language material and explored the foundation myths of indigenous churches. The author is somewhat dismissive of the efforts of mainline Protestant missionary churches to cultivate indigenous Christianity as well as of those Chinese leaders who supported these mission-led initiatives. Thus, Cheng Jingyi (1881–1939), perhaps the foremost Chinese Protestant church statesman of the twentieth century, is not presented in a favourable light. Lian's sympathies clearly lie with the self-supporting indigenous movements that were entirely under Chinese control, in particular those energised by Pentecostalism and premillenarian convictions. Considerable space has been devoted to the True Jesus Church, an aggressively proselytising, millenarian and often antiforeign movement which became and remains today the largest and most dynamic Chinese Pentecostal church in the world. Another chapter deals with the unique Pentecostal rural communes known as the Jesus Family. A somewhat different major indigenous movement, the Little Flock, also called the Local Church or the Assembly Hall, was founded by Ni Tuosheng, more commonly known as Watchman Nee (1903–72). This group, influenced by Plymouth Brethren ideas, was noted for its ‘dispensationalist mysticism’. Lian attributes the rapid rise of these movements to the unsettled and often chaotic conditions that prevailed during the early decades of the twentieth century. He argues that in the context of this apocalyptic gloom, many desperate peasants, fleeing banditry, warfare or famine, joined the new, competing millenarian churches marked by evangelistic fervour, charismatic ecstasies, prophesies, exorcism and the gifts of miracle healing, as well as promises of divine protection. According to Lian, these elements resonated well with the magic and sorcery of traditional Chinese folk religion. Moreover, indigenous millenarianism likewise foretold a period of great cataclysms followed by the coming of a renewed world. Lian devotes considerable space to the leaders, many of whom ‘were unfulfilled semi-intellectuals’ who saw themselves as ‘God's elect in China’, of these independent fundamentalist groups. Most were noted for intense antiforeignism and rejection of modernist ideas. Although the author alludes to the missionaries' feelings of racial superiority, he could also have mentioned the intense sense of racial superiority among members of China's better educated classes. A hint of traditional antiforeignism could already be detected in the behaviour of Chen Mengnan (1840–82), the founder of an independent church in Guangdong in the 1870s. With the rise of radical nationalism and revolutionary activism in the 1920s, accompanied by hyperbole and patriotic rhetoric, Chinese church leaders became more strident in their antiforeignism. In fact, more attention could have been paid to the psychological profiles of these complex yet charismatic religious entrepreneurs. Still, this well-written monograph is an important and much needed contribution to the study of Christianity in China.