André Palmeiro is a name scarcely recognized even within the widening circle of historians of the Society of Jesus. Born in Lisbon in 1569, he entered the Jesuits at Coimbra in 1584. Upon ordination (c. 1599), he followed a familiar trajectory. He first taught Latin, and then philosophy and theology. In 1614 he was nominated rector of the college in Braga. In 1617, Muzio Vitelleschi, the Superior General of the Jesuits, selected him as official visitor for the provinces of Malabar, Goa, and Japan and China. Why Palmeiro, a man with little administrative experience was chosen for this massive task remains unknown, but, as the author suggests, the general's new assistant for Portugal probably recommended him. He left Lisbon in April 1617, and never returned: he died in Macau on April 4, 1635.

The office of visitor, well known in the ecclesiastical world, assumed an even more important role in the administration of the Society of Jesus because of the order's rapid worldwide expansion, and strong central government with inadequate means of communication. With delegated authority from the Superior General, the visitor observed, exhorted, corrected, and punished as he ensured that the Jesuit style of life harmonized with the Society's rules and regulations, and that the doctrines taught, and the liturgies practiced, were consistent with the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. Problems confronted Palmeiro immediately: missionary strategies of Roberto de Nobili; rival provincial congregations in Malabar; Jesuit conflicts with ecclesiastical authorities and other religious orders, etc. Even though he endorsed de Nobili's method, Palmeiro eventually realized that ultimate success depended more on mature managers than visionary apostles whose zeal often caused tension.

The collapse of the once-flourishing Catholic mission to Japan in 1614, the subsequent persecution, and the arrival of many refugees in Macau deflated Jesuit enthusiasm. Yet, the crescendo of oppression did not deter Jesuits in Japan from battling with Franciscans on the mission, and with fellow Jesuits in China who strove to establish their own independent province. Reports smuggled out of Japan lauded the martyrdoms of Sebastião Vieira and others in 1634, and hinted that the Jesuit Superior in Japan, Cristóvão Ferreira, had weakened under torture, apostatized, and betrayed other Christians. (Shūsaku Endō's novel The Silence, recently made into a film by Martin Scorsese, treats the Jesuit mission and specifically Ferreira.) Palmeiro initiated a period of prayer and penitential discipline, including self-flagellation perhaps in the hope of disproving the stories about Ferreira. He weakened his health as the rumors were confirmed.

In 1628 Palmeiro visited the vice-province of China to address definitively “the accommodation method” (215) as introduced by Matteo Ricci and ostentatiously demonstrated by Niklaas Trigault's procession through Europe in sumptuous Chinese silk. More important than exotic dress, the so-called “Terms Controversy” concerned the appropriate translation of Christian theological terms into Chinese, especially the use of the Confucian word Shangdi for God. Ricci and later Trigault endorsed its use. Palmeiro's insistence that the Society abandon this term plunged Trigault into despair. He was found dead in his room in November 1628: he had hanged himself. Other aspects of Ricci's interpretation of accommodation were scrutinized and criticized. Why, some asked, were there so few converts if this strategy was so successful? Moreover, because the principle of accommodation had never been formulated into a mission statement—a Ratio accommodationis—it risked becoming individualistic and idiosyncratic. As a corrective, in 1629 Palmeiro formulated a set of regulations and guidelines that each Jesuit under obedience must follow.

The author's first monograph Journey to the East: The Jesuit Mission to China, 1579–1724 (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008), moved beyond the glory and grandeur of the imperial court to overlooked Jesuit outposts throughout the empire. The success of these ministries very much depended on the influence and diplomacy of the Jesuit mandarins. In both books the author corrects a current misunderstanding—indeed one often embraced by members of the Society of Jesus—that early Jesuits were in some sense exponents of cultural diversity, unfurling the rainbow banner in exotic locales. Other cultures may be sophisticated, but they were also flawed, incomplete, without the Christian message. Jesuits were first and foremost missionaries; they appreciated, understood, and used other cultures as a means for proclaiming the Gospel in the hope of conversion. Not everyone endorsed Ricci's principles; some, not simply the benighted medieval monks of Jesuit lore, but Jesuits themselves, opposed or tempered his approach. Brockey also cautions against an implicit, quasi-providential understanding of the Society's missionary activities as an intimation of globalization by highlighting failed “dinosaur” missions (429), e.g., Ethiopia. Jesuits generally took advantage of opportunities rather than executing a master plan.

The Imago primi saeculi (Antwerp, 1640) celebrated the first centenary of the Society of Jesus. One poem celebrated the Society's desire for the “greater glory of God”: “Let another person collect for himself jewels and gold beyond the Indus, and pursue exotic wealth on an exotic shore” (Art, Controversy and the Jesuits. The Imago primi saeculi, ed. John W. O'Malley, S.J. [Philadelphia: Saint Joseph's University Press, 2015], 443). Despite his stress on the religious dimension of Jesuit work, Brockey avoids a discussion of Jesuit motivation, spiritual formation and identity. Why was it that Palmeiro was willing to leave Lisbon for an exotic shore without pursuing exotic wealth with little prospect of returning? He should be more attentive to Jesuit terminology and the Jesuit way of life. Regardless of this omission Brockey has written another excellent exposition and analysis, rooted in a mastery of major Occidental languages that opens up archival documents and secondary sources.