Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary Association and Southern Blacks, 1861-1890 (review)

192CIVIL WAR HISTORY emancipation that they deserve to be published in a separate volume. It might be a slender book but it would be one of large significance. Willard B. GatewoodJr University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary Association and Southern Bfocks, 1861-1890. By Joe M. Richardson. (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1986. Pp. ix, 348. $30.00.) Since 1909, when Augustus Field Beard's A Crusade of Brotherhood: A History of the American Missionary Association and Paul H. Douglass's Christian Reconstruction in the South appeared, at least a dozen books have been published examining various aspects of black education in the South during and after the Civil War. While several of these works are truely exceptional, including the fine study of Hampton by Robert Inges and the detailed Reading, 'Riting, and Reconstruction by Robert Morris, none can match the graceful prose, breadth of analysis, compelling narrative of Christian Reconstruction. In detailing the crusade of the American Missionary Association—a northern based Protestant evangelical missionary society—to assist former slaves in their quest for learning, the study analyzes the problems confronting middle-class northern whites (and some blacks) as they sought to teach former slaves what they considered to be the prerequisites for good and productive life—acceptance of the values of "industry, frugality, honesty, sobriety, marital fidelity, self-reliance, self control, godliness, and love of country" (p. 41). It also examines the Association's efforts to provide relief in the way of clothes, blankets, and food for suffering freemen, its attempt to organize and establish common schools, and its internal and external administration. Utilizing the rich correspondence at Dillard University's research center , it looks in some depth at fund raising and the financial sacrifices of administrators and teachers as well as the struggles ofblack missionaries. In some ways the American Missionary Association (the largest freedmen's aid society) was a glowing success: it sent thousands of workers to the field, assisted tens of thousands of blacks in various ways, established hundreds of schools (working with the Freedmen's Bureau and public school systems), and began the process of training black teachers. In 1888, there were an estimated 15,000 black teachers in the South; at least 7,000 had been trained in the Association schools, including Fisk, Howard, and Atlanta universities. Yet, the question the book asks—can knowledge, compassion, and commitment, overcome racial prejudice?—is left only partially answered. Both those who sought to instill the values of individualism, self-control, and industriousness in former slaves and the blacks themselves, who had created their own systems for emotional support through extended families, friends, and unique oral and religious traditions, viewed each other with distrust, BOOK REVIEWS193 suspicion, and ignorance. Scholars will probably not find new interpretations nor ground breaking analysis in these pages, but this handsomely illustrated, interestingly written, and forcefully presented monograph will allow readers to consider a myriad of important and compelling questions about white-black relations in the South. In doing so Professor Richardson has provided historians and general readers alike with a book of enduring significance. Loren Schweninger University of North Carolina—Greensboro Imperialism andIdealism: American Diplomats in China, 1861 -1898. By David L. Anderson. (BIoomington: Indiana University Press, 1985. Pp. ix, 237. $24.95.) David Anderson looks at the eight United States ministers to China between 1861 and 1898 and concludes they could not agree on how the United States should act toward China. Their policies ranged from Anson Burlingame's treatment of China as an equal in the family of nations to J. Ross Browne's advocating coercing concessions from China. Anderson attributes this absence of a consistent policy to the ambivalence Americans held toward China, an ambivalence arising from the dichotomy between idealism and imperialism in American foreign relations. The idealist impulse urged Americans to respect Chinese sovereignty while the imperialist impulse pushed the U.S. to force its will on China. Anderson's focus is on the ministers themselves: who they were, where they came from, and how they responded to diplomatic issues in China. All too often, this results in a tedious summarizing of diplomatic dispatches. More importantly, this approach does not provide...