Catherine O'Donnell's Jesuits in the North American Colonies and the United States is the latest volume of the Brill series, Research Perspectives in Jesuits Studies. The series is designed to offer both scholars and students fascicles on “various thematic and geographical/chronological subjects” within Jesuit Studies. O'Donnell fulfils this aim. The book is concise and the prose well-paced and accessible to both scholars and to students. It is organized into twenty-eight short chapters throughout which O'Connell incorporates archival material that ensures Jesuit narratives remain foregrounded. The first twelve chapters focus on the colonial period; the first six address the Francophone and Hispanic territories. The history of the Jesuits in the United States is explored until the present day and includes discussion of the Maryland Province and Georgetown University's recent decision to atone and make reparations for having once been slaveholders as well an evaluation of the impact of Jesuit reckoning with their involvement in clerical sex abuse. As a result, the bibliography includes the expected canonical works in the history of the Jesuits in North America. In addition to herself, O'Donnell cites important work by colonial and early national historians, such as Robert Emmett Curran and Tricia Pyne, and modern historians whose work is also prolific, such as Philip Gleason and Joseph M. McShane. For scholars and students interested in more discrete areas of Jesuit history in colonial North America and the United States, O'Donnell again cites publications that act as a gateway to these vast fields of scholarship, which includes the history of global Catholicism; Jesuit involvement in European colonialization of the Americas; Jesuit ethnography; Jesuit involvement in transatlantic slavery; Jesuit collaboration with women religious; and Jesuit response and adaptation to political and institutional change including the American Revolution (1776–1791), the suppression of the order (1773–1814), and Vatican II (1965). For these reasons, O'Donnell's book is a very useful digest of an enormous body of scholarship that would enable academics already working in Jesuit studies to quickly grasp recent advancements in scholarship or aid scholars seeking publications suitable for inclusion on an undergraduate reading list. However, it is perhaps most useful as a starting point for graduate research or for experienced scholars outside of Jesuit studies seeking to pivot toward this area of scholarship. For example, scholars interested in Native American history would undoubtedly benefit from O'Donnell's analysis of divergent strategies to achieve conversion and Eurocentric acculturation that were employed by Jesuit missionaries in Spanish, French, and British North America, and later in the United States.

There are a few minor omissions that readers should be aware of, especially if they intend to use this book as a teaching resource. The first is that on occasion, only passing attention is paid to important terms and concepts that are likely well known to those already working in Jesuit studies but unfamiliar to those who are not and especially unfamiliar to undergraduate students. For example, chapter 6addresses the colonial Pimería Alta region and thus repartimiento, reducciones, and encomienda (18–19). While each is given a brief definition, their importance to Spanish colonization and especially the extent to which they were contested and controversial systems in the Americas and in Europe is not discussed. For example, the system of encomienda was undermined by reports of abuse of Native Americans combined with the papal bull Sublimi Deus (1537) in which Pope Paul III confirmed that Native Americans were worthy of baptism. In turn, Emperor Charles V was troubled enough to pass the Leyes Nuevas de Indias (1542–1543) in an abortive attempt at legal reform to alleviate the suffering of Native Americans. Given that the Jesuits benefited from encomienda and held a special relationship to the papacy, the latter point is one that O'Donnell makes clear throughout the book, more discussion on these systems or even a supplementary footnote would have enabled a stronger appreciation for the entwinement of empire, Jesuit missions, and the papacy.

Secondly, although scholars who have contributed to important shifts in historiography in recent years are cited those shifts are not discussed by O'Donnell. For example, O'Donnell cites Luke Clossey's Salvation and Globalization in the Early Jesuit Missions (2008), which has been instrumental to understanding the development of global Catholicism in the early modern period; yet global Catholicism as a framework of understanding is not addressed. Again, for experienced scholars this is less problematic, but the discussion would have been useful to include in the introduction for the benefit of graduate students and scholars from other fields especially. Still, these omissions are of limited detriment to the book whose objective is to offer a concise overview of an expansive field of study. Certainly, minimal supplementary reading or instruction would easily overcome these omissions. For the most part, O'Donnell strikes a fine balance of the need for brevity with the need to provide sufficient detail to enable understanding, and thus I expect this book will be welcomed by the academy.