A Danger to the State: A Historical Novel

Rating:
Summary: Moved three words off my "queasy list"
Review: For years, my Queasy List (words or events
that I know are important but don't know
enough about to explain to an 8th-grader)
included the "Enlightenment," the "Suppression
of the Jesuits," and the Paraguay "Reductions."

Trower's "Danger to the State" moved all three to my
Got It List. Plus, it's plenty good enough as a novel
to keep me excited about the plot and the fate of the
characters.

Since reading it, then stumbling across his monograph,
"The Church Learned and the Revolt of the Scholars"
(available by free download), and then speaking to him
for a few minutes, I've come to believe he is as honest
and fair a historian as one is likely to find.

Marshall Fritz
www.HonestEdu.org


Rating:
Summary: Catholic Family newspaper review
Review: Joanne Bogle, writing in "The Catholic Family" (No.38 IV 1998) writes: "This book genuinely deserves the comment, "I couldn't put it down". Combining vivid descriptions with a magnificent plot, interweaving high adventure, intrigue and haunting romance, it is the story of the Jesuit supression in the 18th-century. It describes their magnificent work in South America, stalks spies and politicians through the courts of Europe and shows how decisions and compromises made by leaders of Church and state have effects on the lives of ordinary people. Philip Trower's prose is free of clichés or lavish wording; he has produced a novel that is both readable and with an epic quality. He brings history before our eyes and makes its conversations and tensions echo in our ears and minds. I recommend it particularly for anyone in their late teens or twenties".

Rating:
Summary: Suppression of Jesuits; Tragedy for Western Civilization
Review: Trower's book is a fictional depiction of the historical events surrounding the supression of the Jesuit Order in 1773. When Pope Clement XIV issued the brief decommissioning the Society of Jesus, he wiped out a religious order founded in 1540 by St. Ignatius of Loyola. At the time of its demise, there were almost 23,000 Jesuits in Europe, the Far East, and the Western Hemisphere. The Order had 39 provinces containing 845 educational institutions over 600 of which were secondary schools and colleges all of which were well endowed and tuition free. No wonder the Enlightenment enemies of the Church targeted the Society of Jesus! It was like a formidable intellectual and unsinkable battleship which made short work of silly fools like Diderot and sybaritic fops like Rousseau. The Jesuits had to be swept away in order that the Enlightenment could have a free hand. The results: intellectual confusion and the disintegration of Western civilization -- legacies that still plague us today. The novel is focused around a Spanish noble family, both of whose sons are Jesuits, one a novice in Spain, the other a priest in Paraguay. Trower's story fleshes out the dry historical bones of this little remembered episode in history. He accomplishes it well by sound historical research, masterful character development, and not without intrigue and mystery. The Order eventually was restored in 1814, kept alive in Russia during the interim by Catherine the Great, who recognizing the Jesuits' formidible intellectual and teaching skills, would not allow the papal brief of suppression to be promulgated. Even this episode makes its way into Trower's drama. Ignatius Press does not as a matter of course publish fiction unless it is of the highest quality. Once again Ignatius made a sound editorial decision. the reader will not be disappointed.