1. The light of the sun: stimulus for mission; 2. The growth of the mind: nature and mission education; 3. The seed of the soul: conversion illustrated by nature; 4. The body that will bloom: death and its theology of nature; 5. The plants of the land: building settlements of civilisation; 6. The idol of weeds: the exchange and display of nature.
A study of the relations between nineteenth-century science and Christianity.
Review of the hardback: 'Sivasundaram makes a fine case for
considering missionary natural history as a credible form of
science during the early nineteenth century … This book will force
historians to question sharp modern distinctions between science
and religion, the spiritual and the material, evangelicalism and
enlightenment, colonies and metropolis, tradition and modernity,
when it comes to understanding missionary and indigenous
categories. Only by finding more adequate organizing concepts, and
provincializing the binary categories generated by the historical
experience of modern Europe, will we understand cultural
transformations during a period in which Christianity, dwindling in
its old European heartlands, boomed beyond the West.' British
Journal of the History of Science
Review of the hardback: 'For once a cover blurb gets it right: this
is the first sustained account of the relationship between
nineteenth-century science and Christianity outside the western
world, and it mounts a powerful challenge to traditional
interpretations of the relationship between science, religion and
empire.' Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
Review of the hardback: '… an intriguing exploration … adds depth
to the field through its fresh reading of missionary publications
and visual archives of this episode of Britain's world-wide
evangelical push.' The American Historical Review
Review of the hardback: 'An impressive, methodologically
successful, example of the unification of the history of science
and imperial history … an important contribution to British
history.' Sehepunkte
'Colonial knowledge has assumed an increasingly important position
in scholarship on British empire building in the Pacific. Sujit
Sivasundaram's Nature and the Godly Empire is a key contribution to
this developing line of enquiry. This richly textured monograph
examines the connections between scientific knowledge and practice
and the work of the London Missionary Society (LMS) in Polynesia.
Sivasundaram convincingly argues that the understandings of the
natural world that missionaries brought to the Pacific were central
to the ideology of the mission.' The Historical Journal
'Nature and [the] Godly Empire is a very interesting study of one
of the key motors of Victorian culture and society, and its best
sections sparkle with original analysis. It is precise and
informative - the section about the LMS museum in London and the
society's collecting culture is terrific - and it makes an
important contribution to scholarship in the field.' Victorian
Studies
'Sivasundaram's book is a mine of new or off-the-beaten track
information … It would appear to be essential reading for the
historian of Christian expansion … for the missiologist reflecting
on the cross-cultural communication of the Gospel; and to be sure,
for any student of British Christianity in the early nineteenth
century.' Journal of Ecclesiastical History
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