Like other books of mine, this one owes much to my two extraordinary research assistants, Na Liu and Elizabeth Costa. In addition to their tracking down all sorts of information for me, Ms. Costa did the copy-editing and fact-checking of the manuscript, which Ms. Liu then converted into galleys and helped to index, after which the resulting Quark file was sent to the publisher, who could have the book printed directly from her computer file. The chapter on the history of economics was read by distinguished emeritus Professor William R. Allen of UCLA, a former colleague whose insightful comments and suggestions were very much appreciated, even when I did not make full use of all of them. Needless to say, any errors or shortcomings that remain after all these people’s efforts can only be my responsibility.
And of course none of this would be possible without the support of the Hoover Institution and the research facilities of Stanford University.