Although this is a book about nineteenth-century Mormonism and its expansion into the Pacific Basin frontier, it also makes important contributions to the study of American religion and the history of Christianity in its many forms in this period. The editors have chosen twelve previously published essays that illustrate the thesis put forward in Laurie Maffly-Kipp's essay “Eastward Ho! American Religion from the Perspective of the Pacific Rim,” also reprinted in this volume. That thesis is that in order to understand the religions, cultures, and history of the North American West in the modern period, one needs to pay attention to the many movements back and forth across the Pacific, not simply the westward movements across the continent from the Atlantic. Influences and people, she argues, move both ways.

The book begins with two introductory essays. The first, written by both Nelson and Maffly-Kipp, situates Mormonism in the Pacific Basin, noting that “seven years before Mormon leaders set foot in the Utah Territory [1847], they had already traveled even further west” (3), to Australia (1840), Tahiti (1844), and Hawaii (by the 1850s). The second essay, the reprinted “Eastward Ho!” by Maffly-Kipp, introduces the theoretical issues the editors used in compiling the collection. The editors then take us on a grand tour of the Pacific Basin frontier. They begin in California, move down the Pacific coast of the Americas to Chile, and venture out into the ocean to Polynesia. They move from there to Australia and New Zealand, consider Mormon encounters in East Asia, and end the journey back in Salt Lake City.

Rather than giving us a general narrative, these collected essays consider specific developments in specific places. Edward Lyman presents a history of the rise and decline of the Mormon settlement in San Bernardino, California. Carol Madsen discusses the cultural encounters of Mormon missionary wives in Polynesia. Sandra Taylor tells us about the role Mormonism played in the proposals made by the American adviser to the Meiji leaders in Japan, Charles LeGendre. Michael Lansing's essay closes the collection by using the setting of Salt Lake City to illustrate the development of Chinese communities in the American West.

The strengths of this collection lie in the rich comparative work most of them undertake. For those who are interested in understanding the history of the expansion of Christianity in all its forms and related movements, the collection here provides essential insight into the ways the introduction of Christianity shaped Pacific cultures, but also the ways in which Pacific cultures adapted and shaped Christian movements and practices in their territories. Mormonism provides a useful lens for understanding these developments because it is on the one hand a branch of Christianity, and on the other a completely different approach to the older traditions. Many of the authors compare Mormon missionary efforts to similar missionary movements undertaken by American and European Protestants, giving us new insights into both efforts, and, particularly in Madsen's essay, insights into the role of women in these enterprises. Some of the works, such as Taylor's essay about LeGendre, connect religious movements with political and economic developments, giving us new insights into the interplay of cultures transforming the Pacific region in the nineteenth century. The Meiji rejected Christianity and Mormonism on their road to participation in the modern era as a world power, but Taylor points out the influences of LeGendre's Mormon thinking on his advice to the Meiji, which they in turn adopted.

As with any collection of essays, there is unevenness. Some of the journals from which these essays come are more specialized than others, and the authors sometimes assume the reader will be familiar with Mormon terms and concepts. Some of the essays are more critical or analytical than others. Despite this, all of them enlighten us about eastward as well as westward influences. All of them give us a deeper and more complex picture of Mormonism as a tradition developing in relationship to the cultures it encountered and attempted to convert with varying degrees of success. In these essays, Mormonism becomes part of a larger history of Christianity as a diverse and global body of religious traditions. Finally, all of them remind us that the Pacific Basin frontier is as much a part of American and world history as the Atlantic Ocean or the Mediterranean Sea.