To Overcome Oneself: The Jesuit Ethic and Spirit of Global Expansion, 1520–1767. By J. Michelle Molina. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. xiv + 278 pp. $49.95 cloth.

Abstract

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)To Overcome Oneself: The Jesuit Ethic and Spirit of Global Expansion, 1520-1767 . By J. Michelle Molina . Berkeley : University of California Press , 2013. xiv + 278 pp. $49.95 cloth.Book Reviews and NotesThis book is at once both fascinating and, in some ways at least, frustrating. J. Michelle Molina sets out to transform our conceptions of the origins of the self, both temporally and geographically. She accomplishes a great deal in this challenging and provocative study, but, at the same time, she perhaps tries to do too much in this roughly 200-page monograph. In essence, she argues that the emerged both sooner and in different areas than the traditional narrative would have us believe. In particular, Molina shifts the focus of the origins of this modern development from northern to southern Europe, and from protestant to Catholic regions. In addition, while changes in southern, Catholic culture were important, so too were those in overseas mission areas, especially New Spain. Two of the proposed driving motors of these transformations are clear from the subtitle of the book: The Jesuit Ethic and Spirit of Global Expansion, 1520-1767 . Thus, Molina's research and insights expand upon several recent historiographical trends in early studies, particularly those relating to the role of the nascent Society of Jesus as a significant spiritual and cultural force, especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well as the process of globalization, specifically as seen here in the global missionary expansion of the Iberian empires. At the heart of all this, according to Molina, were the spirituality of the Jesuits and the diffusion of their spiritual practices in parts of Europe, especially Spain and Italy, and in the overseas missions, perhaps most of all in New Spain.Molina devotes a lot of attention to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. She is certainly correct that Ignatius derived many of his insights from monastic/medieval spirituality and, perhaps more indirectly, from classical sources. Yet he combined this wide range of collective psychological and spiritual wisdom with his own profound experiences and insights, producing a manual designed to encourage self-knowledge, which, in tandem with divine grace, would lead to spiritual transformation. It seems clear that the Spiritual Exercises did have a transforming effect on many of the Jesuits themselves and on significant numbers of individuals with whom they worked. Yet whether this had quite the impact on the contemporary collective consciousness regarding the self that Molina contends is open to question.At the same time, she advances early studies on several fronts, such as with her helpful caveat that we do not fall prey to predefined (66). While she was focusing at that point on gender studies and the danger of too simplistic a divide regarding male and female approaches to spirituality, this theme of unhelpful if not misleading dichotomies appears throughout this study concerning such issues as local/global, urban/rural, aristocrat/commoner, individual/communal, self/other, contemplation/action, and body/soul or physical/spiritual. …