Protestant Missionary Publications in Modern China

The purpose of this study is to investigate the nature, motivation, and goals of the Protestant missionary publication activities, through an examination of the programs and operations of these Protestant presses and a critical analysis of the subject matter and distribution of their publications. The investigation concerns itself primarily with Chinese books and periodicals that were aimed at the general reading public and were published by agencies or presses established or supported by the Protestant missionaries in China, from the inception of the Chinese Republic in 1912, when the Constitution first guaranteed religious freedom for all, to 1949 when all missionary activities were brought to a halt after the establishment of the People’s Republic. This book grew out of a dissertation project completed at the University of Chicago in 1979. It is a historical and statistical study of China, 1912-1949, and its impact on the contemporary Chinese society. As time passes, some of the printed material consulted when preparing this research is either srored in different formats or is no longer extant. This book can fill in some of the missing gaps for later research on the subject matter.