Volumes in this series have been supported by the Jackman Foundation of Toronto. Series One: G.A. Rawlyk, Editor Series Two In memory of George Rawlyk Donald Harman Akenson, Editor This series, founded in 1988 by the late George Rawlyk with the advice of Fr. Edward Jackman and the generous support of the Jackman Foundation, presents front-edge material on all aspects of religious history. It is limited to work done by profesionally trained historians and does not publish devotional or apologetic studies. Roughly one-half of the books published thus far have dealt with some aspects of Canadian religious history (the works of Canadian Methodism are particularly significant), but the series is not limited to Canadian topics. There have been volumes on such diverse topics as the history of the Oral Torah, women in the church in seventeenth-century France, and German Anabaptism.

The long-term goal of the series is to help the history of religion escape from two ghettos that held it in thrall in the past: one of these was the definition of the field as dealing only with the more exotic religious foliage of the Ancient Near East. In contrast, we focus mostly on modern topics. We also wish to hasten the escape from the period when religious history of more modern times was mostly confessional: Catholic history was being written by Catholics, Jewish history by Jews, Protestant history by Protestants. Our belief is that the history of religion is too important not to be shared as part of our society's cultural commons.