The shaping of modern China

Book excerpt: China is poised to play a most significant role in the third millennium. This authoritative history by Dr Broomhall traces the influence of Protestant and Catholic missions and the work of the United Bible Societies during the nineteenth century on the development of modern-day China. Whereas previous historians in this field had worked mainly from secondary sources, Dr Boomhall drew on the first-hand observations, most significantly by his great uncle, James Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, who was described by the historian K.S. Latourette as ?one of the four or five most influential foreigners who came to China in the mid-nineteenth century?.Dr J.A. Broomhall (1911-1994) worked as a missionary doctor among the Nosu in southwest China and the Mangyan in the Phillipines. His devotion to the Nosu is epitomized in the fact that just hours before he died he received news that the provincial government in his beloved Nosuland had just given permission for the agency Medical Services International to work there - it was as if he had been waiting to hear that before he could ?depart in peace?. Dr Broomhall?s other books are Strong Tower (1947), Strong Man?s Prey (1953) on his work among the Nosu, Fields for Reaping (1954) on his work in the Philippines, and Time for Action (1965).