Blood Ground traces the transition from religion to race as the basis for policing the boundaries of the "white" community. Elbourne suggests broader shifts in the relationship of missions to colonialism B as the British movement became less internationalist, more respectable, and more emblematic of the British imperial project B and shows that it is symptomatic that many Christian Khoekhoe ultimately rebelled against the colony. Missionaries across the white settler empire brokered bargains B rights in exchange for cultural change, for example B that brought Aboriginal peoples within the aegis of empire but, ultimately, were only partially and ambiguously fulfilled.

Elizabeth Elbourne is associate professor, history, McGill University.

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"This is an outstanding work of careful scholarship ... Elbourne demonstrates a clear mastery of archival and secondary sources while drawing widely and deftly on the best that contemporary historical forms have to offer. The result is a richly-textured book that affords us a balanced work of synthesis." James Greenlee, co-author of Good Citizens: British Missionaries and Imperial States, 1870-1918