Joseph W. Ho provides a cross-cultural history of American missionary visual practices. Focusing on the American missionaries' images and image making in China from the 1920s to the early 1950s, the book explores how missionaries employed the camera as an agent that facilitated the translations of missionary experiences and the shaping of cross-cultural identities.
Motoe Sasaki, Hosei University, author of Redemption and Revolution:
Weaving the history of technology and culture together with the history of cross-cultural/religious encounters, Joseph W. Ho tells a great story. Developing Mission sheds new light on the literature of the history of US missionaries in China.
Hiroshi Kitamura, College of William & Mary, author of Screening Enlightenment:
Developing Mission is a finely textured study of US missionary practices in China during the first half of the twentieth century. Joseph W. Ho artfully uses photography and film to elucidate the influence of Christian expansionism and its place in the modern world. A wonderful read.
Ho offers a rich, layered, and inspiring history of missionary visual practices. With a diverse range of subjects and a wealth of detail, the vernacular photographs and films offer a provocative alternative to modern visualizations of China.
Ho's multi-faceted analysis effectively underscores the seminal historic relationship of missionaries as photographers. This is accomplished with rich prose alongside well-researched biographical narratives that enliven the many Protestant, Catholic, and Chinese actors; pertinent references that combine Chinese and American religious and secular history; and finally, precise—yet inviting—technical writing about cameras. All aspects engage the reader to be both positively surprised and challenged as to unpack the interdisciplinary components, stories and theoretical content, in each chapter.
The book's distinguishing characteristics include its ingenious, informative title[.] It is of great value to graduate students and historians of Chinese Christianity, Sino-US cultural interactions, and photography and film.
Developing Mission is an extremely well-written, lyrical book that speaks to multiple disciplines. Ho draws upon film theory in meaningful and clear terms and without recourse to much jargon. He frames his story within a historical context that is accessible, and he has a penchant for including anecdotes that are moving and meaningful. This book should be extremely popular among a wide range of audiences inside and outside the academy.
Developing Mission is a groundbreaking contribution to the historiography of Chinese Christianity. Joseph Ho not only offers us a new and exciting methodology to incorporate photographic evidence into the study of mission history but also preserves the ever-receding memory of China's missionary era.
Developing Mission is a nuanced study of a deserving topic. Ho's prose is well crafted and his analysis reflects depth and engagement with a number of fields. The book should attract interest from scholars of modern Chinese history, global Christianity and missions, and historians of technology.
Ho's examinations of missionary photographs offer a compelling perspective on noncombatant photography during times of war. [He] succeeds in making missionaries and their photographs visible once more and showing how they continue to connect some of their members across the communities they imaged.
This book is an accomplishment deserving scholarly attention. It is well researched with a plethora of sources in both English and Chinese and does a marvelous job in helping us understand the centrality of image-making in missionary experiences.
