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.
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. (May 18) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
""God's Soldiers goes for the broad picture but doesn't lose the human element, and Wright's dry wit keeps things lively." --"Star-Telegram (Fort Worth) ""God's Soldiers" goes for the broad picture but doesn't lose the human element, and Wright's dry wit keeps things lively." --"Star-Telegram "(Fort Worth) " "God' s Soldiers" goes for the broad picture but doesn' t lose the human element, and Wright' s dry wit keeps things lively." -- "Star-Telegram "(Fort Worth) God s Soldiers goes for the broad picture but doesn t lose the human element, and Wright s dry wit keeps things lively. Star-Telegram (Fort Worth)"
Of all the religious orders in the Roman Catholic Church, the Jesuits-officially known as the Society of Jesus-have been the most praised and the most denounced, the most loved and the most despised, the most respected and the most feared. The Jesuits have represented the best and the worst of the Roman Catholic Church as it emerged from the Renaissance and the Reformation. British historian and biographer Wright has constructed a beautifully written and well-documented account of the history of the Jesuits. He begins with the life and times of the founder, Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), a Spanish courtier-soldier who would become a scholar, spiritual director, and priest. Wright leads the reader through the Society's 16th- and 17th-century missionary endeavor, through the rumors and facts of scandal in royal courts and church pulpits, through the Society's repression by the pope in the 18th century and restoration by papal decree in the early 19th century, and through its flourishing in the 20th century. A pleasure to read, this book is recommended not only for academic libraries but for any library with a good religion or history circulation.-David I. Fulton, Coll. of Saint Elizabeth, Morristown, NJ Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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