God's Soldiers: Adventure, Politics, Intrigue, and Power--A History of the Jesuits - Hardcover

Wright, Jonathan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385500785 ISBN 13: 9780385500784

Publisher: Doubleday, 2004

Synopsis

A five-hundred-year history of the Jesuits documents the Society's foundation by Ignatius of Loyola in 1534, its unexpected growth, its academic excellence, its powerful enemies, the expulsion of its members from Europe, and its significant influence on both the religious and secular worlds.

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Review

They numbered 20,408 at the start of the 21st century, and their 400-year history is marked by crisis, accomplishment and persecution. They are the Jesuits, the Society of Jesus founded by Ignatius of Loyola in 1534; and Wright, a British historian, tells their amazing story in this thoroughly documented account. Given the scope of his subject, Wright's was no small task and he has neatly compressed the four-century Jesuit saga into a reasonably concise and balanced history. Along the way, he does not shrink from the darker side of that history, whether he is addressing the hatred the order engendered among its detractors or describing the failings of individual members and methods. But he is largely forgiving, allowing for human frailty as an explanation for times when the order's history was marred by less than exemplary behavior. Although Wright acknowledges there have been "Jesuit villains, Jesuits possessed of unseemly ambition, [and] Jesuits who preferred politicking to preaching," he believes the order as a whole has not deserved to be painted with a negative broad brush. Besides recounting the facts of Jesuit history, Wright's chronicle also sheds light on the roots of tensions between Catholics and Protestants that still simmer and even flare up today despite the new spirit of ecumenism fostered by the 1960s Second Vatican Council. Given the Jesuits' missionary spirit and their wide reach in the worlds of education, science and religion, a large and diverse audience should find this book to be of interest. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --Publishers Weekly

British historian Wright provides a digestible account of one of the world's most accomplished and controversial religious orders. Founded in 1534 by Ignatius of Loyola, the Society of Jesus quickly evolved into one of the largest and most influential arms of the Catholic Church. Individually and collectively the Jesuits have zealously pursued missionary work, independent scholarship, holistic education, and political activism for five centuries. Most recently, many members have embraced liberation theology, a radical strategy aimed at achieving social justice and political reform. Despite their undeniably amazing theological, spiritual, scientific, educational, and cultural contributions, the Jesuits have been consistently steeped in intrigue and controversy, alternately revered and reviled by contemporaries and church historians. Seeking to separate fact from fiction and to set the often romanticized or exaggerated record straight, Wright offers a balanced overview that represents and preserves all the gore and glory of the Jesuit past. --Margaret Flanagan

About the Author

The British historian Jonathan Wright was born in Hartlepool in 1969. He was educated at the universities of St. Andrews, Pennsylvania, and Oxford, where he earned his doctorate in 1998. He has published on various aspects of early modern religious history and is a contributor to Oxford University Press's New Dictionary of National Biography and Scribner's revised Dictionary of American History.

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0385500785
• ISBN 13: 9780385500784
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 512