Description:
In this pioneer study, Ion investigates the experience of the Canadians who were part of the Protestant missionary movement in the Japanese Empire. He sheds new light on the dramatic challenges faced by foreign missionaries and Japanese Christians alike in what was the watershed period in the religious history of twentieth-century East Asia.
The Cross in the Dark Valley delivers significant lessons for Christian and missionary movements in Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe which even now have to contend with oppression from authoritarian regimes and with hostility.
This new book by A. Hamish Ion, written with objectivity and scholarly competence, will be of interest to all scholars of Japanese-Canadian relations and missionary studies as well as to general historians.
Brief description: A. Hamish Ion, a specialist in modern Japanese history, currently teaches in the History Department at the Royal Military College of Canada.
Review Quotes: ``Ion's treatment of the closing days of prewar missions (chapters 10-12) combines skilful use of archival sources with sensitivity to the emotional elements involved in the missionaries' leaving Japan....this study breaks new ground in our understanding of the earliest stage of Canadian-Japanese relations....a work which will be of interest to anyone concerned with Canadian-Japanese relations in the twentieth century.''--Cyril Powles