When we speak of the colonial period, particularly in Latin America, we often are talking about mendicant and Jesuit missionaries who played a leading role not only in the encounter itself but also in our recollection of and constitution of “colonial Latin America.” Jesuit missionaries produced thousands of reports and several hundred manuscripts and printed texts on native life and how it was affected by the European invasion of the Americas. Soldiers of God surveys, d in clear, jargonfree prose, the rather diverse Jesuit experience in various parts of the New World (including Florida, Mexico, Peru, the Great Lakes region, and Maryland). When we think of the Jesuits in the New World, we often think of the solitary missionary living among (and like) the Indians. Cushner tells the story of these priests but also reminds us that the Jesuits were busy as educators and pastors in the cities of colonial Latin America, as well as in the countryside of what is today Maryland. In this regard, Soldiers of God does a particularly good job of highlighting the adaptability of the Jesuit order in the New World. On one frontier, the Jesuits seemingly became one with the Indians, whereas in colonial Maryland they became one with neighboring farmers, employing slave labor to raise cotton and tobacco!Soldiers of God is based on an extensive and careful reading of Jesuit primary sources (everything from letters to bills of laden), which reveal the motivations, contradictions, and other complexities of the Jesuit presence in the New World. How did the Jesuits in Maryland justify their reliance on black slaves? Then or now, there is no satisfying answer. Instead, Cushner offers a rather detailed account of Jesuit farms and the life of a slave on a Jesuit farm—a picture conveyed through journals, ledger books, and other records and correspondence. The picture that emerges is filled with contradictions (e.g., Jesuit slaves who own horses), all of which were seemingly overshadowed by a “first principle” that the Jesuits (and other Europeans) applied equally to black slaves and Indians: better you die a Christian (even if it means a rough time on this earth as a slave or subjugated Indian) than die a heathen and be condemned for all eternity.Soldiers of God focuses on a number of larger issues and yet is rich with particulars often absent from studies of the “mission frontier.” Chapter 4, for instance, includes a detailed discussion of the Doctrina Christiana, which was central to missionary enterprises throughout Latin America. Chapter 5 provides equally fascinating details on the Jesuit college, of which there were over 70 in Latin America at the time of the Jesuit expulsion from the Americas around 1767. Arguably, Jesuit schools are key to understanding Latin American society and culture (past and present).Among the larger issues, Cushner focuses on coercion, the Devil, and hunting and gathering, noting how all three seemingly haunted the Jesuits in the New World. The Jesuits explicitly opposed coercion, and yet coercion was integral to mission ways of life (e.g., Indians who didn’t accept baptism were denied rights and privileges afforded Christians). Relative to other Europeans, the Jesuits often accepted the Indians’ humanity and intellectual capacity, and yet, when Indians disagreed, they often were seen as puppets of Satan. The Jesuits were convinced that the Devil was everywhere in the New World, but particularly “in nature”—that is, away from eyes and ears of authority. The Jesuits had particular difficulty with Indians who resisted the European norm for civilized life, which meant year-round residence in nucleated settlements. As Cushner explains, in Florida, the Great Lakes, northern Mexico, and the Rio de la Plata, the Jesuits struggled continuously with hunter-gatherers, who made the largest contribution to Jesuit martyrs in the New World.Soldiers of God is a clearly written and engaging survey d of the Jesuit experience in colonial America. This experience is not oversimplified or glorified, but rather deftly portrayed for what it was: a colonial enterprise ripe with contradictions and paradox. One would imagine that undergraduate students would particularly appreciate Cushner’s clarity, and students and teachers alike will appreciate the study questions and the suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter of the book.