The Black Pope: A History of the Jesuits, written by M.F. Cusack and originally published in 1896, is a highly critical, scholarly, and historical analysis of the Society of Jesus. The book focuses on the immense power, influence, and perceived controversies surrounding the Jesuit order and its leader, the Superior General (commonly referred to as the "Black Pope"). Cusack wrote the book to alert the public—especially in England and North America—to what she considered to be the dangerous nature of the Jesuits. The work is a piece of late-19th-century religious controversy, designed to expose what the author believed to be the subversion of state and religious freedom.