Description:
An astounding history of the accomplishments of the Society of Jesus, from painting and poetry to cartography and physics, from Europe to New France to China.
Brief description: John W. O'Malley, S.J., is professor in the Department of Church History at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology.
Review Quotes:
'Cultural historians have been, with few exceptions, slow to appreciate the many cultural roles played by the Society of Jesus from its foundation onwards. These spectacularly learned, lively and wide-ranging essays begin the job. They follow the Jesuits into realms as apparently diverse as prayer and philology and into places as distant from one another as Prague and Paraguay. They reveal some of the extraordinary fertile research currently under way on every aspect of the Jesuit enterprise, from its historical origins to its effects on European political and cultural expansion. And though they shed a particularly bright new light on the histories of science, art, and architecture, they leave few segments of the early modern encyclopedia of the arts untouched.'
--Anthony Grafton, Princeton University'The geographical and disciplinary scope of The Jesuits is breathtaking. The quality of individual contributions is high, while the volume as a whole is more than the sum of its parts. It maintains a delicate balance between unity and diversity, showing that Jesuit contributions to the arts and sciences have a style of their own without being monolithically uniform. This is a book which redefines its field. It will be a landmark in Jesuit studies as well as an important contribution to the history of early modern culture.'
--Peter Burke, Emmanuel College, Cambridge University'Beyond the appeal that this book would have to a reader interested in specific items of Jesuit history, it would also have a wider readership among those interested in and/or conversant with the history of Europe from the late Renaissance through the Baroque period and on into the Age of Reason, in fields as varied as politics, literature, science, art, religion, and society. I thought that I knew a fair amount about Jesuitica; yet however much I may know, I have learned from this book much that I had not previously known at all.'
--John W. Padberg, S.J., Director, Institute of Jesuit Sources, St. Louis, Missouri