Pioneering study of Jesuit thinking exploring the society's position on key questions of political thought.

Harro Hopfl is one of the leading historians of ideas writing in Britain today.

Introduction; 1. The character and work of the society of Jesus; 2. The society's organizational ideas; 3. The church, the society and heresy; 4. Jesuit reason of state and religious uniformity; 5. Jesuit reason of state and Fides; 6. Reason of state, prudence and the academic curriculum; 7. The theory of political authority; 8. Limited government, compacts and the states of nature; 9. The theory of law; 10. The common good and individual rights; 11. Tyrannicide, the oath of allegiance controversy and the assassination of Henri IV; 12. The Papal Potestas Indirecta.