IT IS CUSTOMARY for an author to acknowledge help for what’s good and to absolve others from responsibility for what’s bad. This custom proves that the ancient distinction between nature and convention is too starkly drawn, for we scholars cannot go very long without recognizing our debts to others for insights, information, inspiration, and many other things. Nor can we go far without recognizing the stubbornness and other limits that prevent us from benefitting as much as we might from the help of others. I feel a deep obligation of gratitude to many other scholars, including those with whom I disagree. I have attempted always to turn my consideration of their work into something more positive than critique, and believe this to be a very different and better book because I have learned from them even when I have been unable to agree with them. The debts to those from whom I have more directly learned should be evident from my footnotes.
Many of the ideas in this book first saw the light of day, all squinting and blurry-eyed, in my classes at Carleton College. The intelligence, intellectual curiosity, and interest of my students have not only contributed to sharpening and improving many of the ideas here but have been a source of stimulation and sustenance to me for many years. With students like these, it remains easy to remember why teaching seemed to me all those years ago the most wonderful career choice one could make.
Professional colleagues in political science, history, literature, religion, and philosophy have read one or another part of this book and have been unfailingly generous of their time and effort, and sometimes with their criticisms. This project has been ripening over many years, so I am reluctant to single out any by name for fear of failing to mention all.
Various institutions have had a hand in this production as well. Carleton has been both a challenging and a distracting setting for scholarly work. I could mention students, colleagues, and committees, and let the reader decide which is challenging and which distracting. The Carleton administration has been committed to combining dedication to teaching with dedication to scholarship, and has gone to substantial lengths to make these commitments real. In the form of grants for time off, funds for travel and typing, and the general provision of a supportive atmosphere, Carleton has contributed a great deal to the completion of this book. The National Endowment for the Humanities supported this project with a grant that allowed me to spend a year at the University of Delaware. Although I was nothing more to the University than a faculty spouse, I was offered very fine work facilities there, and I am especially grateful for the persevering aid of the interlibrary loan department. I am also grateful to the University Honors Program for assigning to me an undergraduate research assistant, and to Greg Neff, a graduate political science student, who worked with me.
I spent another year as a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a wonderful place to work. Too wonderful, perhaps. Many hours of fine conversation in the coffee lounge and lunch room probably contributed to the general quality of my life, but probably also slowed my writing. My research assistants at the Wilson Center, Steve Frazier, Barbara Blaesing, and David Morrison, were indispensable.
Far from least of the contributors to the completion of this project are those undaunted individuals who have struggled to transform my illegible script into a typed text: Hendrika Umbanhower, the typists in the Wilson Center typing pool, Helen Anctil, Terri Johnson, Larissa Zuckert, and most of all Heidi Whitmore and Rachel Zuckert. Rachel is not only a typist extraordinaire, but as a student of philosophy she also contributed more than the typist’s usual share of editorial comments.
Rachel and Larissa, as well as my youngest daughter, Emily, have contributed immeasureably to the development of my dialectical skills. And finally there is Catherine. Here the conventions of the acknowledgment run out; I must let my silence stand for what only a poem I could not write well enough could say.
The Review of Politics has given permission to reprint material in Chapter 5 that originally appeared in its pages.