{"product_id":"word-across-the-water-american-protestant-missionaries-pacific-worlds-and-the-making-of-imperial-histories-9781501777448","title":"Word Across the Water: American Protestant Missionaries, Pacific Worlds, and the Making of Imperial Histories","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eIn \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWord Across the Water\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e, 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.\u003c\/b\u003e 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. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs 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. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWord Across the Water \u003c\/i\u003eencourages 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eTom Smith is the Keasbey Research Fellow in American Studies at Selwyn College, University of Cambridge. His work has previously been published in \u003ci\u003eDiplomatic History\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eHistorical Journal\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eAmerican Nineteenth Century History\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Cornell University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50899863175442,"sku":"9781501777448","price":38.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_f3adae5c-256b-4afe-af3a-23baa1326a2c.jpg?v=1738367931","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/word-across-the-water-american-protestant-missionaries-pacific-worlds-and-the-making-of-imperial-histories-9781501777448","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}