Reforming the World
The Creation of America's Moral Empire
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Princeton University Press
Published:17th Jan '14
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- Hardback£55.00(9780691145211)
This book provides an insightful exploration of American missionaries and reformers' global efforts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, highlighting their impact on both international and domestic landscapes.
Reforming the World provides an in-depth exploration of the motivations and actions of American missionaries and moral reformers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Author Ian Tyrrell examines the unprecedented scale of their efforts abroad, particularly through organizations such as the Young Men's Christian Association and the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions. He highlights how the exportation of American values not only impacted the countries they engaged with but also reverberated back home, influencing American society and culture.
Tyrrell delves into the transnational responses to internal pressures and European colonialism, as well as the significant changes occurring in global society during this period. He offers a fresh perspective on Christian and evangelical missionary work, framing it within the broader context of American expansionism from the 1870s to the 1920s. The book discusses the concept of soft power and how it was utilized by the United States in its diplomatic relations, while also emphasizing the limitations of this influence.
Through personal narratives and the unique backgrounds of reformers such as Margaret and Mary Leitch, Louis Klopsch, Clara Barton, and Ida Wells, Tyrrell illustrates the complex interplay between moral reform and American foreign policy. Reforming the World ultimately argues that the impact of these reform movements shaped not only the lives of the peoples they sought to help but also the architecture of American engagement with global empires, extending into the era of Woodrow Wilson. This comprehensive analysis underscores the vital role of transnational organizing in America's political and economic expansion.
"The book is well crafted, and the multiple threads laid out at the beginning are carefully and subtly woven into a tight and coherent narrative, allowing the reader to enjoy the thrill of recognition as well the blossoming awareness of the entangled nature of the moral reform movement in American imperialism... Tyrrell has managed to create a book full of tensions and questions which the reader is drawn into, engages in, and emerges from with a broader understanding of, and critical insight into, this phase of American imperialism."--Diese Rezension, H-Soz-u-Kult "In a study both thorough and perceptive, Tyrrell coves the global impact of reformist Protestant missionary efforts from the 1870s to the 1920s."--Choice "This book will be of particular interest to transnational scholars, diplomatic historians, religious historians, and anyone curious about the origins of international humanitarianism... [T]his study does a superb job demonstrating the manner in which moral reform influenced the United States as thoroughly as it did the foreign peoples American missionaries set out to save."--Amy S Greenberg, American Historical Review "Reforming the World is a highly readable, sophisticated analysis of transnational American reform networks that draws on a wide range of primary sources. The book makes a powerful argument about the contributions of interconnected evangelical reformers to the shaping of American empire."--Barbara Reeves-Elllington, H-Soz-u-Kult "This is a finely crafted study grounded in careful analysis of a wide range of manuscript and newspaper sources. It will help to bridge the gap that too often exists between historians of American foreign affairs and historians of American Protestant missions."--Brian Stanley, Journal of Church and State "One would be hard pressed to find an instance where Tyrrell's evidence does not speak to increased transnational, multidirectional flows of people and ideas. Moreover, Tyrrell rightly assesses Progressive Era evangelicals as complicated creatures whose ideas and actions were not informed by narrow or dogmatic notions of religion but rather reflected all manner of political and cultural circumstances and processes. Like any powerful work of world historical inquiry, Tyrrell's argument resonates with present global circumstances."--Clif Stratton, Journal of World History "Tyrrell's work exemplifies the methods and complexity of transnational approaches to history... [S]pecialists will find this book an important contribution to the historical study of imperialism and missions."--Lisa J. Pruitt, Journal of American History "Reforming the World, a dispassionate but deeply original work, puts American Protestant missionaries at the center of the struggle against the opium traffic."--David T. Courtwright, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences
ISBN: 9780691162010
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 510g
336 pages