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Increasingly scholars are exploring the influence of the European Enlightenment on the beliefs and practices of Protestant missionaries who went to Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. This volume, however, is the first to subject this relationship to detailed historical examination. The book concentrates on British Protestant missions and the formative role of the Scottish Enlightment on such topics as education and the relationship between 'conversion' and 'civilization.' After discussing the problematic nature of all attempts to define the Enlightenment, the contributors break new ground by setting the British missionary awakening in the context of its continental European predecessor. Individual regional studies on India, the Cape Colony, and the South Pacific help clarify the role of the Western missionary enterprise since the mid-eighteenth century.
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