What role did Jesuit humanism, education, global missions, and science play in shaping Jesuit participation in the cultural history of the Enlightenment, and why did so many Jesuits and former Jesuits become critics of the legacy of the philosophes by the end of the eighteenth century? What role did the Jesuits play as cultural mediators in the global eighteenth century? In The Jesuits and the Age of Enlightenment, Jeffrey D. Burson addresses these questions in the first-ever concise global history of the often-surprising ways in which the worldwide reach of Jesuit scholarly and missionary networks contributed to the origins and course of the early Enlightenment. Written in lively and accessible prose, the book affords new researchers and students with a useful introduction to the field based on the most up-to-date scholarship.