Race and Redemption

Book excerpt: Race and Redemption is the latest volume in the Studies in the History of Christian Missions series, which explores the significant, yet sometimes controversial, impact of Christian missions around the world. In this historical examination of the encounter between British missionaries and people in the Pacific Islands, Jane Samson reveals the paradoxical yet symbiotic nature of the two stances that the missionaries adopted--"othering" and "brothering." She shows how good and bad intentions were tangled up together and how some blind spots remained even as others were overcome. Arguing that gender was as important a category in the story as race, Samson paints a complex picture of the interactions between missionaries and native peoples--and the ways in which perspectives shaped by those encounters have endured.