Over the long-drawn-out process of writing this book, I have accumulated intellectual and personal debts to many more than the usual band of suspects. Without them the task would certainly have been both impossible and intolerable.
For their detailed reading and comments on parts or all of the manuscript, I thank Kristin Bayer, Pamela Kyle Crossley, Brad Gallant, Rebecca Karl, Iona Man-cheong, Peter Perdue, Lucia Pierce, Kenneth Pomeranz, Jonathan Spence, and Griselda Warr. For making their work available to me, I thank Timothy Barrett, Jane Elliott, Robert Entenmann, Allen Fung, John Herman, Thomas Kennedy, and John Zou. For references, helpful suggestions, and endless encouragement, I am grateful to Jane Baun, Nicola di Cosmo, Antonio Feros, Valerie Hansen, Harry Harootunian, Jonathan Hay, Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, Walter Johnson, Ben Kiernan, Liu Yuan, Molly Nolan, Moss Roberts, Nathan Sivin, King-fai Tam, Joyce Waley-Cohen, Xu Haoyuan, Louise Young, and Marilyn Young. For practical help at critical moments, I owe thanks to Kathryn Aldridge, Evelyne Dumanchin, Anne Gallant, Claire Gallant, Edward Gallant, Samantha Lewin, Gabriele Serruya, Susan Waller, and Rubina Zesner; and for making the details of daily life easier in countless ways, and infinitely more pleasant, thanks to Karin Burrell, Rachel Goldman, Delverlon Hall, Ben Maddox, and Daniel Olson. For unflagging support, and for several very careful and constructive readings of the manuscript as it developed, I thank my editor at Norton, Steven Forman.
For financial and institutional support while I was conducting the original research out of which the book grew, I wish to acknowledge the History of Christianity in China Project and the Henry Luce Foundation; the Columbia Society of Fellows in the Humanities, the John M. Olin Postdoctoral Fellowship in Military and Strategic History at Yale University; and New York University.
The last should be first—as they have often felt over the past few years. In addition to placing on record here my profound and loving gratitude to them, I dedicate the book to Brad, Kit, and Isabel Gallant.