Business guru Peter Drucker referred to the Salvation Army as "The most effective organization in the U.S". The Salvation Army has long been revered for it's passionate adherence to it's mission and purpose of delivering humanitarian and spiritual aid to anyone, no matter who they are. In this important book, former commissioner of the Salvation Army in the U.S. Robert Watson outlines those principles that not only guide that organization, but also can apply to companies, ministries and organizations anywhere.

This meticulously researched yet engaging book traces The Salvation Army s history of service from its beginnings in Victorian England to its present-day mission in all parts of the world. / A phenomenal religious movement, acclaimed for its compassionate service, The Salvation Army now works in no fewer than 118 countries, yet no contemporary book has chronicled this high-profile organization until now. Henry Gariepy s well-written, comprehensive account effectively fills that gap.

The early Salvation Army professed its commitment to sexual equality in ministry and leadership. In fact, its founding constitution proclaimed women had the right to preach and hold any office in the organization. But did they? Women in God’s Army is the first study of its kind devoted to the critical analysis of this central claim. It traces the extent to which this egalitarian ideal was realized in the private and public lives of first- and second-generation female Salvationists in Britain and argues that the Salvation Army was found wanting in its overall commitment to women’s equality with men. Bold pronouncements were not matched by actual practice in the home or in public ministry. Andrew Mark Eason traces the nature of these discrepancies, as well as the Victorian and evangelical factors that lay behind them. He demonstrates how Salvationists often assigned roles and responsibilities on the basis of gender rather than equality, and the ways in which these discriminatory practices were supported by a male-defined theology and authority. He views this story from a number of angles, including historical, gender and feminist theology, ensuring it will be of interest to a wide spectrum of readers. Salvationists themselves will appreciate the light it sheds on recent debates. Ultimately, however, anyone who wants to learn more about the human struggle for equality will find this book enlightening.

The Salvation Army is today one of the world's best-known and best-regarded religious and charitable movements. In this deeply researched study, Norman Murdoch offers some surprising new insights into the denomination's origins and its growth into an international organization. Murdoch follows the lives and work of the Army's founders, William and Catherine Booth, from their beginnings as Wesleyan evangelists in the 1850s to their inauguration of a Utopian social plan in 1890. In particular, Murdoch identifies quick accommodation to failure as a persistent theme in the Army's early history. When the Booth's East End mission faltered in the mid-1870s, Booth took his preaching to the provincial towns. The failure of that ministry led him in 1878 to reorganize his efforts along then-popular military lines, and the Salvation Army was born. With women as its "shock troops," this Christian imperium would spread beyond Britain's boundaries to become as international in scope as Victoria's empire. Challenging various notions popularized in the denomination's official histories, this book will be of special interest to historians of nineteenth-century social reform, scholars of evangelical Protestantism, and readers interested in the relationship between class and religion in the Anglo-American world.

Reproduction of the original: In Darkest England and the Way out by General William Booth