For the Greater Glory of God

A story (surely apocryphal) has a student asking his teacher about the difference between the Dominicans and the Jesuits. "The Dominicans," replied the teacher, "were founded in the thirteenth century to reconvert the Albigensians; the Jesuits in the sixteenth, to reconvert the Protestants." "Is that the only difference?" the student asked. "Well," came the reply, "when is the last time you met an Albigensian?" For anyone who laughed at the joke and now feels a need to make amends, or for anyone wondering whether the joke is quite fair (or its premise even accurate), Markus Friedrich, professor of early modern history at the University of Hamburg, provides the opportunity for atonement (or self-education) with The Jesuits: A History.