Robert E. Johnson is currently Professor of Christian Heritage and Academic Dean at the Central Baptist Theological Seminary. He has also taught at the Faculdade Teológica Batista de São Paulo, Brazil, and the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the editor of American Baptist Quarterly and the author of numerous scholarly articles.

'Rarely does a historical study encompass the whole world, but Robert E. Johnson has achieved that goal in his account of the beginning and development of Baptist life in various lands. He sees the movement as culturally diverse, even in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; stresses the female part in the evolution of the denomination; and sets the emergence of the Baptists in their socio-politico-cultural setting. Here is a new perspective on Baptist identity for the twenty-first century.' David Bebbington, University of Stirling, Scotland

• Introduction; Part I. Foundations: 1. The primal shaping processes of the global Baptist movement; Part II. Age of Emerging Baptist Denominational Traditions, 1600–1792: 2. Seeds for diversity amid an early Anglo prevalence; Part III. The Frontier Age, 1792–1890: 3. Baptists' frontier age in the British Empire; 4. Baptists' frontier age in the United States; 5. Baptists' frontier age in the European continent, Africa, Asia, and Latin America; Part IV. The Age of Proliferating Traditioning Sources, 1890–Present: 6. Baptists' evolving traditioning sources in Africa, Asia, and Oceania; 7. Baptists' evolving traditioning sources in Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, and Eurasia; 8. Baptists' evolving traditioning sources in North America; Part V. Beliefs and Practices: 9. Baptists' beliefs and practices.