ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The idea for this book emerged from my conversations with my exceedingly wise friend Jonathan Rosen; the reality of it from the encouragement and insights of my singularly brainy and empathetic editor, David Ebershoff. I’m grateful as well for the strong support of Dan Menaker and Gina Centrello at Random House.

Valuable ideas for thinking about the subject and structure of the book were contributed by my thoughtful comrade David Samuels. And by my literary agent, Kathy Robbins, who offered her usual superb advice and moral support throughout the process—I am constantly amazed by her wisdom and clarity.

I was especially fortunate in having the counsel of Veronica Windholz, the gifted and dedicated senior copy editor at Random House. Also at Random House, I’m grateful for the advice and counsel of Laura Goldin and Amelia Zaleman, and for the enthusiasm of Lynne Martin. Thanks also to Kapo Ng for his elegant jacket design and to Dominique Troiano, David Ebershoff ’s assistant, for all the work she put in on the project.

A special word of undying gratitude to Cynthia Ozick, a writer I’ve always looked up to, for agreeing to write her remarkably eloquent and impassioned Afterword for this book.

And to all the contributors herein, my thanks for allowing me to include your thought-provoking work in this book.

My conversations with Craig S. Karpel, Tom Gross, Jeffrey Goldberg, Errol Morris, Berel Lang, Neal Kozodoy, Stanley Mieses, Paul Berman, Gabriel Schoenfeld, Nat Hentoff, Daniel Kunitz, Thane Rosenbaum, Rabbi Adam Mintz of Lincoln Square Synagogue, to name a few, were important in helping to clarify some of my ideas, and alerting me to essays I wanted to include.

I also owe a lot to the vigilance of webloggers such as Glenn Reynolds, Meryl Yourish, David Artemiw, Jeff Jarvis, Roger Simon, and, of course, Zachary and Mo of “Exposing the Exposer” (to name a few) in helping me keep in constant touch with the situation and the issues.

There are so many others who deserve credit for many forms of support that made it possible for me to put together a seven-hundred-page book:

Peter Kaplan and Arthur Carter at The New York Observer gave me the space and freedom to explore my ideas on this subject. Petra Bartosiewiecz, who was my editor there through much of this period, also came up with important suggestions for additions to this book. My current editor, Mario Russo, and all my other colleagues at the paper have my thanks as well.

All the smart people at Kathy Robbins’s office—Kate Rizzo, Sandy Bontemps Hodgman, Teri Tobias, Diane Bijou, Sophie Landres, Sarah D’Imperio, and David Halpern—have played important roles in various capacities in helping put this book together.

Liz Groden of City-Secretarial.com has been indispensable, not just in assembling the manuscript but in Web-based research as well. Additional important research help came from Lisa Singh.

Among the many friends and colleagues who have been supportive in various ways while I was putting this together, I’d like to thank Betsy Carter, Gary Hoenig, Virginia Heffernan, Dr. Joseph Fetto, Faye Beckerman, Holly Staver, Noah Kimerling, Richard Horowitz, Sheldon Piekny, Deb Friedman, Fred Kaplan, Eve Babitz, Dora Steinberg, Mark Steinberg, Lauren Thierry, Jim Watkins, Helen Whitney, Jonathan Karp, Jonathan Schwartz, Drs. Paul and Marvin Belsky, Marie Brenner, Naomi Wax, Laura Frost, Daniel Ahn, Susan Kamil, Dan Kornstein, and David Livingstone.

And, as always, my wisest and most knowing counselor has been my sister, Ruth Rosenbaum.

My deepest apologies to those deserving people I’ve inadvertently left out: it’s the nightmare of doing Acknowledgments; I’m sure a dozen more names will occur to me after this goes to press, but please accept my thanks and my chagrin.