For more than twenty years I have wanted to write this book. That's how long I have been teaching the material covered here as an introductory-level course to undergraduate students. Over the years, repeated proposals that I submitted to various presses were rejected on the grounds that there was not enough demand to make such a textbook profitable. Therefore, I am grateful to Beatrice Rehl at Cambridge University Press for offering me a contract. I also thank Mary Robinson-Mohr and Jason Staples for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.

I got the time I needed to write this book thanks to a Chapman Family Faculty Fellowship at the Institute for the Arts and Humanities (IAH) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The research fund awarded with the fellowship paid for the reproduction rights and preparation of many of the images. My work on the book was enriched by weekly meetings with the other Fellows at the IAH during the fall of 2010. I also wish to thank the faculty and staff of the Department of Religious Studies and Dean William Andrews at UNC-Chapel Hill for their support, including granting me a leave of absence for the 2010–2011 academic year.