This book examines the historic tensions between Jehovah's Witnesses and government authorities
civic organisations established churches and the broader public. Witnesses originated in the
1870s as small loose-knit groups calling themselves Bible Students. Today there are some
eight million Witnesses worldwide all actively engaged in evangelism under the direction of
the Watch Tower Society. The author analyses issues that have brought them global visibility
and even notoriety including political neutrality public ministry blood transfusion and
anti-ecumenism. It also explores anti-Witness discourse from media portrayals of the community
as marginal and exotic to the anti-cult movement. Focusing on varied historical ideological
and national contexts the book argues that Witnesses have had a defining influence on
conceptions of religious tolerance in the modern world.
