Against the Gates of Hell

Book excerpt: A riveting story of one man's life and ministry during the explosion of Christian missions in nineteenth-century America, Against the Gates of Hell is the biography of Henry T. Perry, a missionary to Turkey from 1866 to 1913. Based heavily on previously unpublished letters and diaries from the ABCFM (American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions) archives in Harvard's Houghton Library, Against the Gates of Hell provides an eyewitness account of the last years of the Ottoman Empire, years that are the foundation for the modern Middle East. Perry's diary also reveals a life wholly committed to Christ, by his example challenging the reader in his own Christian walk. Here too can be found historical testimonies of Muslim/Christian relations which have assumed renewed importance since the events of September 11, 2001.Against the Gates of Hell is classic narrative history, carefully researched, attentive to human interest detail, and contextually rich in historical background. Because of the richness of the historical background, the work becomes a cultural history as well as a biography. The book includes firsthand, eyewitness accounts of the 1894-1895 Armenian massacres and the 1915 Armenian genocide. Against the Gates of Hell is especially timely for the 100th anniversary in 2015 of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, the first genocide of the twentieth century.