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doi: 10.1017/S0009640709000353 Opening China: Karl F. A. Gützlaff and Sino-Western Relations, 1827-1852. By Jessie Gregory Lutz. Studies in the History of Christian Missions. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2008. xx + 364 pages. $45.00 paper.
In the mid-nineteenth century, evangelical missionaries from Europe and America played a crucial role as pioneering scholars and cultural intermediaries when their nations compelled Qing dynasty China to submit to the realities of Western expansionism. Several recently published studies of the missionary enterprise in China have greatly expanded our knowledge of the profound historical significance of those who sought to convert the Chinese masses over to their vision of a Christian world order. Jessie Gregory Lutz contributes yet another important dimension to our understanding of this episode in Sino-Western relations by critically analyzing the deeds and accomplishments of one of the most intriguing and controversial figures in the history of the missionary movement in China: Karl F. A. Gützlaff. Drawing skillfully on the vast store of information available in missionary archives, along with the published tracts, periodicals, and books of Gützlaff and his contemporaries in China, Lutz traces the life of her subject from the time of his youth and conversion in Germany to his eventful and productive career as a missionary in Southeast Asia and China. Gützlaff was without a doubt one of the most enigmatic of...