Casuistry, the practice of resolving moral problems by applying a logical framew ork, has had a much larger historical presence before and since it was given a n ame in the Renaissance. The contributors to this volume examine a series of case studies to explain how different cultures and religions, past and present, have wrestled with morality's exceptions and margins and the norms with which they b reak. For example, to what extent have the Islamic and Judaic traditions allowed smoking tobacco or gambling? How did the Spanish colonization of America genera te formal justifications for what it claimed? Where were the lines of transgress ion around food, money-lending, and sex in Ancient Greece and Rome? How have dif ferent systems dealt with suicide? Casuistry lives at the heart of such questio ns, in the tension between norms and exceptions, between what seems forbidden bu t is not. A Historical Approach to Casuistry does not only examine this tensio n, but re-frames casuistry as a global phenomenon that has informed ethical and religious traditions for millennia, and that continues to influence our lives to day.