Cultural Worlds of the Jesuits in Colonial Latin America

Cultural Worlds of the Jesuits in Colonial Latin America is the result of an international conference marking the 250-year anniversary of the Jesuit expulsion from Spanish territories in 1767. Edited by Linda A. Newson, the 12 essays of this volume largely turn away from Jesuit conversion efforts to the order's other cultural contributions to Portuguese and Spanish America. The black robes in this book develop language tools, introduce technologies, promote new artistic styles, study the natural world, and teach music. They may occasionally baptize and offer spiritual instruction, but they rarely, if ever, pray, practice the Spiritual Exercises, or promote Marian devotion. While one book clearly cannot cover the entire history of the Society of Jesus in the Americas, as Newson openly confesses in her introduction, it must be emphasized that Cultural Worlds is primarily an account of Jesuit activities in South America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries....