Introduction: Maritime Missions

Abstract

The global mission mandate, present in the New Testament and pre-modern Christianity, took on new force in the early modern period. Missionaries promoted the globalization of Christianity, and in so doing contributed to the broadening of intellectual horizons across the world. Often traveling by sea, they were among the first to cover the vast distances that the maritime empires of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would subsequently span. This special issue explores the connections between three dynamic fields of research: missions, the history of knowledge, and maritime history. Taking a global and trans-denominational perspective, we seek to shed new light on some of the encounters, networks, exchanges, and transfers facilitated by maritime missions and the interactions of culturally and religiously diverse protagonists during the long eighteenth century.