Overview

The culmination of D. E. Mungello’s forty years of study on Sino-Western history, this book provides a compelling and nuanced history of Roman Catholicism in modern China. As the author vividly shows, when China declined into a two-century cycle of poverty, powerlessness, and humiliation, the attitudes of Catholic missionaries became less accommodating than their famous Jesuit predecessors. He argues that “invasion” accurately characterizes the dominant attitude of Catholic missionaries (especially the French Jesuits) in their attempt to introduce Western religion and culture into China during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Elements of this attitude lingered until the end of the last century, when many Chinese felt that Pope John Paul II’s canonization of 120 martyrs reflected the imposition of an imperialist mentality. In this important work, Mungello corrects a major misreading of modern Chinese history by arguing that the growth of an indigenous Catholic church in the twentieth century transformed the negative aspects of the “invasion” into a positive Chinese religious force.

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9781442250482

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D. E. Mungello's fascinating account focuses on particular confrontational episodes following the resumption of the Jesuit missionary enterprise in the middle of the nineteenth century. With characteristic thoroughness, he reveals the at times contradictory nature of the new missionary engagement in China. The Catholic Invasion of China examines in meticulous detail the resistance by the Catholics of Jiangnan to the imposition of a European-led ecclesiastical hierarchy in the 1840s. The spiritual domination and control of church affairs by foreign priests, convinced of their (French) 'mission civilisatrice', retarded the development of an indigenous Catholic church. As the first history of Catholicism in China to emphasize race and sexuality, Mungello's book corrects a major misreading of modern Chinese history. -- R. G. Tiedemann, Shandong University, China This is an excellent book where the interested reader can find a balanced, insightful discussion and analysis of the history of the Roman Catholic Church in China. Professor Mungello has offered us several stimulating books on this subject in the past, and now he has created a well-rounded work of synthesis of the story of the Church in China. I recommend it highly. -- Daniel H. Bays, Calvin College David Mungello has been consistently erudite, lucid, and comprehensive in his writings on Chinese Christians. Here is another crisp and ambitious offering. -- Jonathan Spence, professor emeritus, Yale University

Author Information

D. E. Mungello is professor of history at Baylor University. His books include The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500 – 1800, Drowning Girls in China: Female Infanticide since 1650, and Western Queers in China: The Fight to the Land of Oz.

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