Religion and British Imperial History

Currently reading, very briefly, a review article on religion and British imperial history:

1. Tony Ballantyne, 'Religion, Difference, and the Limits of British Imperial History', Victorian Studies, Vol. 47, No. 3, Spring 2005, pp. 428-55.

The following six books under review:

1. Imperial Bibles, Domestic Bodies: Women, Sexuality, and Religion in the Victorian Market, by Mary Wilson Carpenter; pp. xxii + 206. Athens: Ohio UniversityPress, 2003, $39.95.
2. Missionary Women: Gender, Professionalism and the Victorian Idea of Christian Mission, by Rhonda Anne Semple; pp. xvii + 285. Woodbridge, UK, andRochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2003, £60.00, $110.00.
3. The Imperial Horizons of British Protestant Missions, 1880–1914, edited by Andrew Porter; pp. x + 264. Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 2003, $45.00, £32.99.
4. Missions, Nationalism and the End of Empire, edited by Brian Stanley; pp. x +313. Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 2003, $45.00,£32.99.
5. Religion versus Empire?: British Protestantism, Missionaries, and Overseas Expansion, 1700–1914, by Andrew Porter; pp. xviii + 373. Manchester: Manchester University Press; New York: Palgrave, 2004, £60.00, $74.95, £18.99 paper, $29.95 paper.
6. Imperial Fault Lines: Christianity and Colonial Power in India, 1818–1940, by Jeffrey Cox; pp. ix + 357. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002, $55.00.

Among these six assiduously researched books, Carpenter's Imperial Bibles, Domestic Bodies caught my immediate attention not because of the principle of 'first come, first serve', but its avant-garde title and cutting-edge subject, and, most importanly, the pivotal role of print culture in forging the English Bible, or so called 'Oriental book' in nineteenth-century Britain.