Recent Studies in Jesuit History

Abstract

The past two decades have witnessed an important shift in the historiography of the Society of Jesus. The older style of Jesuit history, flavoured with confessional polemics, and so often dependent on the work of Jesuit scholars isolated from the more secularly oriented academic community, had already ceased to dominate when John O'Malley's magisterial The First Jesuits appeared in 1993.1 Since then, the partnering of Jesuit and non‐Jesuit scholars has produced scholarship that is generally sympathetic to the Society's aims and methods while avoiding neither criticism of the Jesuits nor thorough, judicious use of archival materials. The significance of this trend is heightened by the declining numbers of Jesuits in North America and Europe, creating a situation where the advancement of Jesuit studies will, at least in these venues, increasingly become the responsibility of non‐Jesuits. With the passing of the Jesuit scholar of Jesuits, something is lost and gained; potentially greater objectivity towards the Society is offset by the loss of insight into the individual and corporate experience of being a Jesuit. The four books reviewed here illustrate in varying degrees these developments in the field.