Araujo and Lucal have written a lucid and scholarly history of papal diplomacy from the medieval period to the end of the League of Nations as the first volume in their projected two-part study. Both Jesuits have served on the Permanent Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations and so have developed the ability to read the documents with a critical eye as they parse the meaning of what is sometimes fairly vague diplomatic language that, in reality, is framing an agenda. In the nine chapters of this book, the reader will be immersed into the ongoing attempts of the Holy See to fulfill the church's commitment to maximize the dignity of each person through the diplomacy that it has conducted since the Middle Ages. In the course of their analysis, the authors probe how the diplomats of the Holy See have developed the appropriate conditions that have made possible meaningful negotiations, how they have tried to insert the social teachings of the Catholic Church into each diplomatic agenda, and how they have tried to safeguard the exercise of each person's religious conscience.