New book on Jesuits in Japan by M. Antoni Ucerler, S.J.

A new book by Associate Professor M. Antoni J. Ucerler explores the encounter of Christianity and premodern Japan in the wider context of global and intellectual history. In The Samurai and the Cross: The Jesuit Enterprise in Early Modern Japan, Ucerler examines how the Jesuit missionaries sought new ways to communicate their faith in an unfamiliar linguistic, cultural, and religious environment--and how they sought to "re-invent" Christianity in the context of samurai Japan. Based on little-known primary sources in various languages, the book explores the moral and political debates over religion, law, and "reason of state" that took place on both the European and the Japanese side.