This volume addresses a timely subject--the question of small wars and the limits of power from a historical perspective. The theme is developed through case studies of small wars that the Great Powers conducted in Africa and Asia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This historical overview clearly shows the dangers inherent for a metropolitan government and its armed forces once such military operations are undertaken. Importantly, these examples from the past stand as a warning against current and future misapplication of military strength and the misuse of military forces.

While continuing diplomatic efforts at limiting nuclear weapons, at reducing stockpiles of conventional arms, and the ongoing political change in Eastern Europe have lessened the dangers of a major war between the superpowers, small wars like the Persian Gulf War still occur. The end of the Cold War has brought more armed conflict in Europe, albeit in the form of sporadic civil war or ethnic violence, than during the height of NATO and Warsaw Pact confrontation. Indeed, it seems that as the risks of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union have diminished, political leaders have become more willing to resort to military force to solve complex international problems before exhausting diplomatic channels. This study will be of interest to policymakers and scholars interested in the judicial exercise of power.

From Thermopylae to Belfast, elite military formations have been deployed against conventional or irregular forces. This study offers a superb analysis of elites in military history. A collection of brilliant studies by distinguished scholars, it illuminates, through a combination of overview and case study, a historical subject that has profound implications for the development of specialized forces in the post-Cold War Era. The study uses a comparative approach which investigates the topic over time and across culture.

The influx of Protestant missionaries from Britain to Japan, Korea and Taiwan was an integral part of the British presence in East Asia from 1865 to 1945. Ion draws on both British and Japanese sources to examine the life, work and attitudes of the British missionaries, women and men, who ventured far from their homeland to preach the gospel. He explores the role played by British Protestants as both Christian missionaries and informal ambassadors of their own country and civilization. Through their educational, social and medical work the missionaries helped introduce Western ideas and social pursuits which in turn affected different facets of society and culture in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The study illustrates how the British missionaries' intent to introduce Christianity was affected by the response of the East Asians to Western ideas.

In describing the high drama of the British missionary movement's pioneering days in the late nineteenth century to its persecution during the late 1930s, Ion casts light on a particular, yet important, aspect of the changing tides of Anglo-Japanese relations. This book will ably complement his previous study of Canadian missionaries in East Asia during the same period.

Chosen as one of the 15 outstanding books of 1993 for mission studies by the "International Bulletin of Missionary Research."

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.

Drawing on both Canadian and Japanese sources, this book investigates the life, work, and attitudes of Canadian Protestant missionaries in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan (the three main constituent parts of the pre-1945 Japanese empire) from the arrival of the first Canadian missionary in East Asia in 1872 until 1931. Canadian missionaries made a significant contribution to the development of the Protestant movement in the Japanese Empire. Yet their influence also extended far beyond the Christian sphere. Through their educational, social, and medical work; their role in introducing new Western ideas and social pursuits; and their outspoken criticism of the brutalities of Japanese rule in colonial Korea and Taiwan, the activities of Canadian missionaries had an impact on many different facets of society and culture in the Japanese Empire. Missionaries residing in the Japanese Empire served as a link between citizens of Japan and Canada and acted as trusted interpreters of things Japanese to their home constituents.