the American Historical Association, and Potsdam University. I am grateful to the audiences at all of these places for their comments and consideration.
I am likewise grateful to my colleagues at Florida State, who provided a great deal of helpful feedback during the two work-in-progress talks I delivered at the Department of History. Rafe Blaufarb, Ron Doel, Charles Upchurch, George Williamson, Fritz Davis, Nathan Stoltzfus, and Robert Gellately kindly read individual chapters with particular care and offered much helpful advice. John Marincola in the Department of Classics did the same with his generous and discerning eyes, and François Dupuisgrenet Desroussilles brought his astounding erudition to bear on two chapters that eventually became one. Edward Gray heard me out on many occasions, lifting my spirits even as he did damage to my liver. And for professional assistance and personal relief, I must also thank the brothers of the Order of St. Walpurgis—John Corrigan, Thomas Joiner, Neil Jumonville, David Kirby, John Maner, Mark Petralunga, David Scott, and Mark Weingardner—for their robust courage in doing battle against the demons of academic pomposity, intellectual laziness, provincialism, boredom, and excessive sobriety. The three other members of the “4 D’s Dining Club,” who in the interest of discretion shall remain nameless, have done much the same.
Very special thanks are due to several individuals who read the draft manuscript in its entirety. David Bell, whose insight and generosity is unsurpassed, has more to do with this project’s improvement, and less to do with its shortcomings, than anyone I know. Merci, bonne étoile . David Armitage, copain andcomrade in arms, read through the draft with his characteristic brilliance and wit, keeping me laughing and enthused for great stretches of its composition; and Steven Englund, whose Paris drawing room is a rejuvenating place of sweetness and light, offered the wise judgments of a writer who is also a very fine historian.
A great many other individuals shared knowledge, references, insight, or unpublished work. A complete list would run to several pages, but let me at least express my gratitude to Kathleen Kete, John Carson, Adam Potkay, David Bates, Pascal Dupuy, Lauren Gray, Nathalie Heinich, April Shelford, Rob Riemen, Eric Eichman, Robert Folkenflik, Mark Juergensmeyer, Kent Wright, Jeremy Caradona, Daniel Roche, Jacques Revel, Eva Giloi, Laurel Fulkerson, Christine Zabel, Larry Fischer, Michael Carhart, Julianna Baggot, Danny Markel, Cyril Triolaire, Philippe de Carbonnières, Peter Hicks, Thierry Lentz, John Randoph, Rolf Reichardt, John Merriman, Eliyahu Stern, Mark Lilla, Stéphane Van Damme, Matthew Day, Will Hanley, Sophia Rosenfeld, Thomas Meyer, Sonja Asal, Shalyn Rae Claggett, W. Warner Burke, James Younger, Lynn Hunt, Irina Sirotkina, Margaret Jacob, and the late Frank Turner, who died too young, but taught me much.
Tarah Luke, Katherine Cox, Darren Darby, and Antje Meijners all assisted me with research and tracking down materials. In Berlin, Dorit Brixius was of invaluable assistance in helping me with German sources. And my doctoral students in Tallahassee, Joe Horan, Cindy Ermus, Shane Hockin, Bryan Banks, and Jonathan Deverse, were all pulled into the process at one stage or another and helped out with great efficiency and good cheer.
Much of this manuscript was written in Berlin, that remarkable city that has known so much suffering and inflicted so much pain, and yet has transformed itself into a capital of great enlightenment and pleasure. I am immensely grateful to the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung for sponsoring my time there as well as to Günther Lottes, who was a model host, ever generous in his friendship, ideas, and wit. Iwan d’Aprile was similarly forthcoming, and the many wonderful graduate students at the University of Potsdam made this a lively and welcome retreat, just as Irmela Schautz, Christian Ridder, and