Introduction: Religion and Empire,an Historiographical Perspective*

The relations between empires and Christianity have been the subject of considerable historiographical attention and it is the object of this paper to review the major issues in this recent literature to provide a context for the specialised papers which follow. Major issues on which discussion is focussed include the extent to which missionaries can be said to be agents of empire, the significance of missionary critique of imperial practice and the extent to which missionary activity was a form of “cultural imperialism.” Examples are chosen chiefly from the British Empire but there is also some comparative material drawn from the history of the Roman, Spanish, and French empires.