Republics And Kingdoms Compared

A Socratic dialogue set in the court of King Mattias Corvinus of Hungary (the book was written ca. 1490), the work depicts a debate between the king himself and a Florentine merchant. This is the first critical edition and the first translation into any language. --publisher's description.

In 1823, as the first American missionaries arrived in Hawai'i, the archipelago was experiencing a profound transformation in its rule, as oral law that had been maintained for hundreds of years was in the process of becoming codified anew through the medium of writing. The arrival of sailors in pursuit of the lucrative sandalwood trade obliged the ali'i (chiefs) of the islands to pronounce legal restrictions on foreigners' access to Hawaiian women. Assuming the new missionaries were the source of these rules, sailors attacked two mission stations, fracturing relations between merchants, missionaries, and sailors, while native rulers remained firmly in charge. In The Kingdom and the Republic, Noelani Arista (Kanaka Maoli) uncovers a trove of previously unused Hawaiian language documents to chronicle the story of Hawaiians' experience of encounter and colonialism in the nineteenth century. Through this research, she explores the political deliberations between ali'i over the sale of a Hawaiian woman to a British ship captain in 1825 and the consequences of the attacks on the mission stations. The result is a heretofore untold story of native political formation, the creation of indigenous law, and the extension of chiefly rule over natives and foreigners alike. Relying on what is perhaps the largest archive of written indigenous language materials in North America, Arista argues that Hawaiian deliberations and actions in this period cannot be understood unless one takes into account Hawaiian understandings of the past—and the ways this knowledge of history was mobilized as a means to influence the present and secure a better future. In pursuing this history, The Kingdom and the Republic reconfigures familiar colonial histories of trade, proselytization, and negotiations over law and governance in Hawai'i.

"Two observations initiated this study; the statistical fact that today less than 1% of the French population are evangelical Christians, despite centuries of Christianity present in France and multiplied missionary efforts in the twentieth century, and the the obvious lack of missiological studies about these poor results and the particularities of secularist France as mission field. A preliminary research project (survey concerning communication and relations in French churches) indicated the existence of a specific French mindset. An investigation of the place of religion throughout history and a sociological analysis of today's values and self-image in France provided insight into the French collective identity. This identity, compared to a relational approach of the New Testament Christian identity, led to the identification of conflict zones. Among the different possiblities for handling the conflict, the incarnational ministry model was withheld. This study concludes with the proposal of a six-principle framework for a church-growth inducing approach that takes into account the cultural specificities of the French mission field.