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AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW OCTOBER 2020 twentieth century was in fact the Christian century is equivocal. While he acknowledges positive developments, he also notes that optimism cannot be maintained in the face of horrors as deep as the Holocaust and the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda, which both took place in largely Christian countries and implicated churches.

Nevertheless, the variety of themes that Stanley explores and the breadth of contexts he discusses are truly impressive. The creativity he uses in case selection encourages readers to look at historical development in new ways. By drawing on cases from Indonesia to Brazil to Ghana to Melanesia, Stanley helps to decenter a history that has often focused too much on European and North American events and agency. While not all the cases he explores are equally important—the growth of neo-Orthodox churches in places like …