Protestant Missionaries in the Levant: Ungodly Puritans, 1820-1860

by Samir Khalaf

Through focusing on the unintended by-products of New England Puritanism as a cultural transplant in the Levant, this book explores the socio-historical forces which account for the failure of early envoys' attempts to convert the 'native, ' population. Early failure in conversion led to later success in reinventing themselves as agents of secular and liberal education, welfare, and popular culture. Through making special efforts not to debase local culture, the missionaries' work resulted in large sections of society becoming protestantized without being evangelized.An invaluable resource for postgraduates and those undertaking postdoctoral research, this book explores a seminal but overlooked interlude in the encounters between American Protestantism and the Levant. Using data from previously unexplored personal narrative accounts, Khalaf dates the emergence of the puritanical imagination, sparked by sentiments of American exceptionalism, voluntarism and soft power to at least a century before commonly assumed.

298 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Samir Khalaf is a Lebanese sociologist. He was born in Beirut on October 14, 1933. He has written extensively on the Arab world and on Lebanon in particular. The majority of themes in his work include sexuality in the Arab world, the Lebanese Civil War, Urbanization, and the role of the Protestant missionaries in the Levant. He is currently a professor of sociology at the American University of Beirut, and has also been a director of the Centre for Behavioural Research there since 1994.

Khalaf received his bachelor's degree in Economics from the American University of Beirut in 1955, and later his MA in Sociology in 1957. Furthermore, he obtained an MA in Economics and Sociology in 1959, and PhD in Sociology in 1964 from Princeton University.