This collection of essays provides the reader with a broad view of the role of the Society of Jesus in collecting scientific knowledge from around the world at the very birth of modern science, during the first phase of European expansion. The authors of the nine essays represent a geographical focus that stretches from Peru to North America, and as far as the Philippines. The topics are similarly varied, considering ethnography, astronomy, the pharmacopeia, and traditional forms of medicine. The essays also consider whether or not there was such a thing as a Jesuit form of science.

Each of the authors is a well-known scholar who brings a deep understanding to the topics covered. The temporal coverage is similarly thorough, analyzing material from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries and the expulsion of the order from the Hispanic territories. The book demonstrates that the Jesuits were perhaps the first group to create a worldwide scientific enterprise.

Similarly, the authors of these essays come from both the Americas and Europe, bringing their own international flavor to the endeavor. These essays tend to demonstrate that the Jesuits had great respect for the ways of knowing of the peoples they encountered and were eager to collect that knowledge for future benefit. In short, this is a very valuable collection of essays that demonstrates the role of science in the first period of European expansion and how those experiences led the world from the early modern into the modern period.