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The Founding of the Jesuits 1540 . By Michael Foss. New York: Weybright and Talley, 1968. vii + 307 pp. $7.50.

In view of the general need for works of responsible popular history, this book is a disappointment. The conception behind it is promising enough. In keeping with the title of the new series (Turning Points in History) of which it is a part, it treats of 1540, when Paul III gave official approval to the Society of Jesus, as a pivotal year. The first section deals with the tribulations of later medieval Christendom, the middle part narrates the origins of the Society as marking a significant transition to the modern world, and the last section surveys the achievements, adaptations, and decline of the Jesuits. The author has read more widely than one might suspect from his perfunctory bibliography, and he is good at conveying the personalities of Ignatius and other major figures who interest him. But in the end the book lacks the seriousness required by good history for any audience. One can perhaps overlook the total absence of documentation, although the discriminating use of footnotes would seem a useful opportunity to lead readers further into a subject. But it is more difficult to accept the author's complacent style, which tends to dispose of sensitive problems with glib and dubious formulas; thus Luther becomes "a rugged peasant of tight and old-fashioned notions" (p. 153). Furthermore Foss's own attitude toward the age of which he writes is often disconcertingly ambiguous in ways that only obstruct the historical imagination. Sometimes he is whimsical, relishing the quaintness of the past; at other times he is an indignant liberal, deploring its brutality. But even when he treats it straight, he depends largely on standard oversimplification and cliches that are often both misleading and inaccurate. One further example will illustrate why I would hesitate to recommend this book to a student; of Philip II Foss writes (p. 249): "He had only one policy— a Catholic policy; and the religion that followed his policy was bleak and extreme because that was the Spanish faith."