Book excerpt: In this monograph the authors extend the classical algebraic theory of quadratic forms over fields to diagonal quadratic forms with invertible entries over broad classes of commutative, unitary rings where is not a sum of squares and is invertible. They accomplish this by: (1) Extending the classical notion of matrix isometry of forms to a suitable notion of -isometry, where is a preorder of the given ring, , or . (2) Introducing in this context three axioms expressing simple properties of (value) representation of elements of the ring by quadratic forms, well-known to hold in the field case.