This is the twenty-fifth volume in the Cambridge Companion to Religion series. In addition to Worcester's introduction it includes eighteen free-standing chapters, most by established scholars. Nine chapters are by Jesuits, one by an ex-Jesuit, and eight by non-Jesuits. The volume is divided into five parts. The first part is divided into three chapters and centres upon the life and writings of St Ignatius of Loyola. The second part examines Jesuit work in early modern Europe and has chapters on Rome and Italy, on England, Scotland and Ireland, on France and the French monarchy, and on Poland and eastern Europe. Another chapter traces the unsuccessful efforts of women, notably Mary Ward, to establish a female branch of the Jesuits. One is tempted to ask, ‘Why no chapters on Germany, Spain and Portugal’, but as Worcester points out in his introduction (p. 5), to cover all countries where Jesuits worked would require several volumes. The third part deals with Jesuit missionary work outside Europe before the suppression of the Society in 1773. There are chapters on Japan, China and New France. Again, one might ask, ‘What about India and Latin America?’ A chapter by Thomas Cohen traces the shifting Jesuit stance toward admitting candidates of Jewish, Japanese, Chinese, African and Native American descent. The fourth part has two chapters on Jesuit contributions to the arts and sciences before the suppression. One is by Gauvin Alexander Bailey on Jesuit church architecture in Latin America; the subject is narrow but the scholarship is excellent. The next chapter, ‘The Jesuits and the quiet side of the scientific revolution’, mainly discusses how Jesuit scientists in the seventeenth century worked their way around the papal condemnations of Galileo and heliocentrism. The Jesuit role in the Catholic Church and western culture was greatest in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It declined with the Enlightenment; the papacy, pressured by the Bourbon monarchies, suppressed the Jesuits in 1773, then restored them in 1814. The fifth and last part, ‘Jesuits in the modern world’, covers the period from 1773 to the present in four chapters. It starts with an insightful chapter by Jonathan Wright on the suppression and restoration of the Jesuits. The coverage of the next two centuries is thin. For this reviewer the most interesting chapter was that by Gerald McKevitt on Jesuit schools in the United States, 1814–c. 1970. The early Jesuit colleges were founded by European Jesuits and followed European curricula and administrative patterns. Gradually they became Americanised and gained respect in the United States, as can be seen in the recent annual evaluations of American colleges and universities. The number of Jesuits and their numbers in Jesuit schools have declined, but their schools still retain a distinctive character. Another chapter traces the contributions of Jesuit theologians since Vatican II. The final chapter, ‘The Jesuits today’, is by Worcester and is only nine pages long. The number of Jesuits world-wide peaked at 36,000 in the 1960s and has now declined to some 20,000. The decline was sharpest in Europe but also affected the United States. Secularism seems the main cause. But the number of Jesuits in Asia and Africa has risen. Today there are more Jesuits in India than in the United States. All eighteen chapters make a real contribution. Each chapter has extensive endnotes. There is a fine index and, more important, an eight-page select bibliography. Anyone beginning to investigate the Jesuits should start here.