Shanghai Faithful is an extraordinary book. Based on thorough research and an intensely personal quest for understanding, Jennifer Lin’s family history is vividly told and packed with insights. It provides a unique window into the complicated and often painful history of Protestant Christianity in modern China. Her account traces the Chinese Christian experience across five generation, from early missionary encounters through the nationalist currents of the 1920s and the attacks on Christianity during the Maoist decades. It centers around the figures of her grandparents, the Anglican minister Lin Pu-chi and his wife Ni Guizhen, the sister of the influential Chinese indigenous church leader Watchman Nee (Ki Tuosheng). I have learned much from reading this gripping and deeply moving book. – Ryan Dunch, University of Alberta
Jennifer Lin’s Shanghai Faithful is an extraordinary story about a family in a rapidly changing world. Its wide-ranging narrative links family members on two continents and covers more than a century of tumultuous change. Lin’s research is meticulous and combines archival precision, sophisticated historiographical framing, and memorable storytelling. I will surely be assigning Shanghai Faithful in my own teaching, because its story brings to life a remarkable era in Chinese, American, and global history. – Robert Andre LaFleur, Beloit College
Pearl S. Buck Writing Center 