Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements Series

The scope of this series – as its title hints – is truly vast and the number of volumes continues rising to above seventy at present. The works on religion are the most numerous, ranging from world religions like Catholicism or Islam to smaller or more local ones like the Shakers and the Friends (Quakers), from the major Western denominations including Lutheranism or the Baptists to Eastern faiths like Buddhism and Shinto, with a smattering of less strictly defined contingents such as Shamanism and New Age Movements, to say nothing of the marginal but still interesting Witchcraft. The philosophies stretch from Ancient Greek Philosophy to Medieval Philosophy, to the philosophies of Leibniz, Nietzsche, Hegel and others, and specific categories include Epistemology and Ethics. The movements are many and varied: Civil Rights, Environmentalism, Feminism, and Zionism, just to mention a few. Like all the other series these volumes are written by highly qualified authors with an impressive knowledge of their subject, and who are themselves well known in their field. They apply the now-standard format for historical dictionaries. This includes a list of acronyms, chronology and introduction upfront and appendixes and bibliography in the back but the core of the book is the dictionary with literally hundreds of entries on important persons, places and events, concepts and institutions, holy books for the religions, philosophical treatises for the philosophies, and declarations or platforms for the movements, organizations, institutions, activities, and issues.