I could not have completed this volume without the help and encouragement of friends, colleagues, and most of all the many patient authors, some of whom waited more than ten years for it to come to press. As with countless essay collections, this one was pieced together a bit at a time over almost a decade. It was a complex project, needing balance among different cultural areas, research methodologies, and historical eras. Meeting those requirements was the primary reason that assembling the collection took as long as it did. Nevertheless, I am grateful to those authors who stayed the course and did not withdraw their submissions for publication in other venues.
Special thanks goes to Ben Harbert, who so beautifully reconfigured the musical examples into a format that would work for publication in a book with specific size limitations. I also appreciate the thorough readings given by my referees, and the work and support of Judith McCulloh and Laurie Matheson at the University of Illinois Press. Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to the UCLA Institute of American Cultures, whose funding was crucial to completing this volume.