Mungello's discussion on the underground church throws important light on our understanding of religious questions, especially Catholic problems in modern China.

China Quarterly

Mungello objectively captures the triumphs and tragedy of Franciscan priests and Chinese converts on the plains of Shandong. . . . Meticulously researched, engagingly written, and full of insights into the nature of early modern Chinese Catholicism.

Daniel H. Bays, Calvin College

If, as Aby Warburg once wrote, 'God is in the details,' then D. E. Mungello's masterful reconstruction of the indigenization of Christianity in seventeenth and eighteenth century Shandong is divine. With his signature mastery of sources and ethnographic sensitivity to the scattered records of European missionaries and Chinese Christians, he vividly retraces the movements of body and spirit within a discrete interval of the Sino-western encounter to disclose the perilous but productive convergence of cultures presaging our global present. Most importantly, Mungello draws from these irreducible, faithful dead a tale of poignancy and power that in its eloquence binds readers of today (students and scholars alike) with a courageous creative minority whose ingenious embrace of Christianity was responsible for its assimilation into Chinese culture.

Lionel M. Jensen, author of Manufacturing Confucianism: Chinese Traditions and Universal Civilization

"In The Spirit and the Flesh, Mungello directs his attention to the daily life of the Franciscan Christian communities in the northern Chinese province of Shandong between 1650 and 1785. He chronicles through the biographical experiences of Spanish and Italian Franciscans, belonging both to the Spanish Province of San Gregorio Magno and to Propaganda Fide, the difficult beginnings, the hard-won developments, and the eventual demise of the Shandong misison.

Eugenio Menegon, Boston University

Lucid, concise, and absorbing.

China Review

In this meticulous and fascinating account, David Mungello brings vividly to life the human experience of missionaries working across the provinces of Qing China-the sense of isolation, the poverty, the interdenominational friendships and disputes, and the worldly temptations. Illuminating the dependence of European missionaries on their Chinese converts, he shows the extent to which Christianity became assimilated into Chinese culture prior to the growth of European imperialism and, tantalizingly, suggests that often, the locales in which Christianity has resurfaced in China today correspond to the centers of clandestine mission activity two centuries ago.

Joanna Waley-Cohen, New York University