The collection of English books printed before 1801 in the University Library of the Vrije Universiteit at Amsterdam is one of the largest collections of such books outside the English-speaking world, and by far the largest in the Netherlands. The collection numbers 5,600 titles and covers all subjects, but is especially concentrated on (reformed) protestantism in Great Britain, the Netherlands and America, and the exchange of ideas between these countries. The collection of which the existence is practically unknown, contains many rare items from the 16th to the 18th century. It covers the periods of the well-known and widely used bibliographies of English printed books (STC, Wing, and ESTC); in a large number of cases the catalogue entries correct or supplement these bibliographies. The catalogue is aimed both at a general public of bibliographers, literary and book- historians working with books from the STC, Wing and ESTC periods, and at researchers in the Netherlands, Great Britain and elsewhere specialised in church history and the manifold historical and cultural relations between the British Isles and the Low Countries.

Situated at the crossroads of important trade routes, the bustling seaports of the Low Countries not only traded cargoes of grain and timber, silk and spices, woollen cloth and splendidly executed altarpieces, but also manuscripts and books, news, information, ideas and gossip. Thus the Netherlands were touched by the evangelical Reformation movement at an early stage and played an increasingly important role as a crossroads for religious and philosophical ideas, serving as an intermediary between different parts of the world. The third volume of Intersections is devoted to this aspect of the 'intertraffic of the mind.' Thirteen authors from various disciplines address issues such as: How 'open' were the various religious groups to new points of view and how did they react to each other's opinion? How did they get familiar with new insights and different attitudes, and what was the role of trade and traffic in spreading them? How important was the part played by the various church and civil authorities, on the different levels of local, regional and national government? Contributors include: Paul Arblaster, Pieta van Beek, Ralph Dekoninck, Jeanine De Landtsheer, Agnes Guiderdoni-Brusle, Jason Harris, Christine Kooi, Fred van Lieburg, Guido Marnef, Mia M. Mochizuki, Henk van Nierop, Charles H. Parker, P.J. Schuffel, and J.J.V.M. de Vet.

The religious history of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Protestantism was marked by a twofold movement. On the one hand there were attempts to consolidate and, if necessary, to reaffirm the heritage of the Reformation; on the other hand, we meet a growing critical evaluation of the legacy of mainstream orthodox thought, which could lead to a process of gradual renewal and reorientation, but also to forms of more radical and controversial criticism. Conservative as well as critical tendencies can be discerned in the religious landscape on both sides of the North Sea. In spite of differences in the historical framework and spiritual culture, the developments in Great-Britain and on the Continent often present remarkable parallels, and the water of the North Sea was not too deep for creative interaction. This volume contains a number of essays which deal with various aspects of English and Dutch church history and theology in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Special attention is given to the problems surrounding the Calvinist doctrine of predestination; to English Puritanism and its impact on the Netherlands; to Jewish-Christian relations and polemics in the seventeenth century; to seventeenth-century millenarianism, in particular in the circle of the Cambridge Platonists; to the attitute of Dutch Reformed theologians to the Church of England, to eighteenth-century English and Dutch orientalist studies and to the development of enlightened ideas in the circles of English and Dutch Protestantism.

The influx of Protestant missionaries from Britain to Japan, Korea and Taiwan was an integral part of the British presence in East Asia from 1865 to 1945. Ion draws on both British and Japanese sources to examine the life, work and attitudes of the British missionaries, women and men, who ventured far from their homeland to preach the gospel. He explores the role played by British Protestants as both Christian missionaries and informal ambassadors of their own country and civilization. Through their educational, social and medical work the missionaries helped introduce Western ideas and social pursuits which in turn affected different facets of society and culture in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The study illustrates how the British missionaries’ intent to introduce Christianity was affected by the response of the East Asians to Western ideas. In describing the high drama of the British missionary movement’s pioneering days in the late nineteenth century to its persecution during the late 1930s, Ion casts light on a particular, yet important, aspect of the changing tides of Anglo-Japanese relations. This book will ably complement his previous study of Canadian missionaries in East Asia during the same period. Chosen as one of the 15 outstanding books of 1993 for mission studies by the International Bulletin of Missionary Research.

In Word Across the Water, Tom Smith brings the histories of Hawai'i and the Philippines together to argue that US imperial ambitions towards these Pacific archipelagos were deeply intertwined with the work of American Protestant missionaries. As self-styled interpreters of history, missionaries produced narratives to stoke interest in their cause, locating US imperial interventions and their own evangelistic projects within divinely ordained historical trajectories. As missionaries worked in the shadow of their nation's empire, however, their religiously inflected historical narratives came to serve an alternative purpose. They emerged as a way for missionaries to negotiate their own status between the imperial and the local and to come to terms with the diverse spaces, peoples, and traditions of historical narration that they encountered across different island groups. Word Across the Water encourages scholars of empire and religion alike to acknowledge both the pernicious nature of imperial claims over oceanic space underpinned by religious and historical arguments, and the fragility of those claims on the ground.