Acknowledgments

This book has been a collaborative undertaking, and I would like to thank all at Thames & Hudson for their continuing encouragement, support and careful attention to the text and images.

I am grateful to Mark Seymour and Michael Sibalis for having read the entire manuscript with a meticulous eye and beneficial comments, to Alastair Blanshard for reading the essays on ancient Greeks and Romans, and to Matthew Stavros for reading the pieces on the Japanese figures. Peter Zinoman kindly directed me to work on Xuan Dieu. Heli Lääthela read and summarized a Finnish book on Magnus Enckell for me, and I am grateful to Jim Masselos for his comments on the South Asian entries. To the University of Sydney library I am indebted for obtaining many books, chapters and articles. My colleagues in the Department of History at the University of Sydney provide a congenial and stimulating intellectual environment. Other friends gave valued suggestions about the choice of men and women to include in this volume, and what to say about them. I hope that they will find pleasure in reading about these lives.