A WORK LIKE THIS ONE hangs in an immense web of dependencies that cannot be done justice by a brief acknowledgments page. Such a project would be inconceivable were it not for the efforts of scholars and scientists dating back to the era of Wilkins and Comenius, and extending into the present day. Not to say as much would be unjust. But in a work of fiction, which necessarily strays from historical and scientific truth, acknowledgments can backfire. Serious scholars mentioned below should be applauded for their good work, never blamed for my tawdry divagations.
The project would not have happened it all were it not for serendipitous conversations several years ago with George Dyson and Steven Horst.
The following scholars (again in alphabetical order) have published work that was essential to the completion of this project. While eager to give them due credit, I am aware that they may be chagrined by my work’s many excursions from historical truth. Readers who want to know what really happened should buy and read their books, while blaming the errors herein on me: Julian Barbour, Gale E. Christianson, A. Rupert Hall, David Kahn, Hans Georg Schulte-Albert, Lee Smolin, Richard Westfall, D. T. Whiteside.
Particular mention must go to Fernand Braudel, to whose work this book may be considered a discursive footnote. Many other scholarly works were consulted during this project, and space does not permit mentioning them here. Of particular note is Sir Winston Spencer Churchill’s six-volume biography of Marlborough, which people who are really interested in this period of history should read, and people who think that I am too long-winded should weigh.
Special thanks to Béla and Gabriella Bollobás, Doug Carlston, and Tomi Pierce for providing me with access to places I could not have seen (Bollobás) or worked in (Carlston/Pierce) otherwise. George Jewsbury and Catherine Durandin and Hugo Durandin DeSousa provided timely assistance. Greg Bear lent me two books; I promise to return them! And for talking to me about gunpowder, and listening equably to the occasional rant about Alchemy, thanks to Marco Kaltofen, P. E., of the Natick Indian Plantation and Needham West Militia Companies.
Helping in many ways to make this possible on the publishing end, and exhibiting superhuman patience, were Jennifer Hershey, Liz Darhansoff, Jennifer Brehl, and Ravi Mirchandani.
Jeremy Bornstein, Alvy Ray Smith, and Lisa Gold read the penultimate draft and supplied useful commentary. The latter two, along with the cartographer Nick Springer, participated in creation of maps, diagrams, and family trees. More detail is to be found on the website BaroqueCycle.com.