Banner-carrying Salvation Army marchers, stone-silent Quakers, jumpy Midwestern revivalists, closed-fellowship Brethren, and Prayer-book Anglicans all made up the mixed multitude sent to the Middle Kingdom by the China Inland Mission (CIM).

In "China's Millions," the newest volume of the acclaimed Studies in the History of Christian Missions series, veteran historian Alvyn Austin crafts a compelling narrative of the sprawling history of the China Inland Mission. Austin explores two questions: How did British evangelicalism feed into American fundamentalism, eventually becoming global Protestantism, and how did evangelical Christianity become Chinese? Along the way he introduces readers to a remarkable array of sights, from the visionary, charismatic sect-leader Pastor Hsi, to the "wordless book," a missionary teaching device that fit perfectly with Chinese color cosmology, to the opium-soaked aftermath of the North China Famine of 187779.

Clear, readable, and well researched, "China's Millions" digs deeply into the Chinese and Western past to tell a story that no one would think to tell, the strange yet hopeful result of two cultures colliding.