Andrew Preston, Cambridge University:
"Conroy-Krutz has several objectives, all of which interweave to produce a compelling overall analysis about America's place in the world and how religion helped to shape it.... Conroy-Krutz's most important scholarly intervention is her typology of imperialism and her deft discussion of the ways in which different types of empire, not just American, intersected but also competed with one another.... Christian Imperialism is a superb addition to the burgeoning subfield of work that uncovers the religious aspects of America's engagement with the wider world."
Rosemarie Zagarri, George Mason University, author of The Politics of Size: Representation in the United States, 1776–1850:
"In Christian Imperialism, Emily Conroy-Krutz shows how the growth of evangelical religion in the early nineteenth century had an outward-looking face as well as a domestic one. Religious identity both complemented and competed with national identity. Conroy-Krutz argues that from a very early date Americans had imperial aspirations that extended beyond the borders of the United States and the limits of North America and reached across the globe. This is a terrific contribution to our understanding of the early republic."
Christine Leigh Heyrman, University of Delaware, author of Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt:
"Christian Imperialism offers a fresh and discerning exploration of the links between evangelicalism and empire in the early republic. Emily Conroy-Krutz raises big questions about the impact of the formative decades of the American foreign missions movement and sets forth informed, challenging answers."
Brian DeLay, University of California Berkeley, author of War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.-Mexican War:
"These pages are populated by idealistic Americans whose dreams of remaking the world become tangled up in uncomfortably familiar contradictions. Moved by heartfelt universalist convictions, their program nevertheless presupposed clear racial and civilizational hierarchies. Gratefully traveling in the wake of imperialists, many soon found themselves bitterly opposing colonialism and empire. Through telling comparisons and strikingly fresh connections, Emily Conroy-Krutz artfully recovers the audacious global horizons of U.S. missionaries in the first half of the nineteenth century."
Joshua Paddison:
"By focusing on the efforts of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), the largest missionary organization of the antebellum era, Conroy-Krutz shows how debates about religion and race in the United States were thoroughly shaped by conceptions of "heathens" abroad. Christian Imperialism's extensive use of ABCFM internal sources allows the missionaries to emerge as three-dimensional, complicated people. Taking the mutually constitutive natures of religion and race for granted, [Conroy-Krutz reframes] the parameters of "American religious history." [This book makes] a convincing case that American studies scholars must take religion seriously as an integral part of racial formation and an engine of historical change.""
Roberta Wollons:
"In 1810 four young evangelical Christian men at Andover Theological Seminary made the decision to dedicate their lives to missionary work and petitioned the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to form a missionary society, the lofty American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). In 1812, the first group of young men and their wives set out to convert the world to Christianity, launching what would become the largest missionary organization in the UnitedStates. This story has been well told within the burgeoning subspecialty of American missionary history.... Conroy-Krutz's contribution to this history is an innovative approach to understanding the first thirty years (1812–1846). Rather than focusingon the institution’s internal history or missionary theology, she relocates it as a study in imperialisms: the Christian imperialism to convert the world in tandem with the British and American political imperialisms to which missionaries attached themselves in choosing.... Christian Imperialism adds a new perspective to the history of the American Board."
