No matter how many authors are on the cover, every book is the work of many hands. We would like to thank the people who made this project possible, starting with our saintly spouses, Jennifer Carlson and Bryan Mealer, who not only supported us in the writing, but also looked after two budding new families at the same time. Our agent Zoë Pagnamenta not only championed this project but also deftly and graciously steered it through several fragile moments on the path to completion. A team of research assistants, including Mishka Vance, Michael Brady, Andrea Jones-Rooy, Mirela Iverac, and Jonathan Thong, helped us sort through the science. Dominick Anfuso at Free Press and Hilary Redmon helped us bring it over the finish line. Andrew would also like to thank his wonderful colleagues at PopTech, particularly Leetha Filderman, who kept the wheels on the bus turning when Andrew appeared after a night of binge typing. Andrew would also like to thank his parents. His father’s strength and mother’s unparalleled ability to bounce back have been guiding stars his whole life.
A special thanks to the remarkable people whose work and writing directly (and as often indirectly) inspired the ideas presented in this book—particularly Buzz Holling, Brian Walker, Johan Rockström, John Doyle, George Sugihara, Simon Levin, Robert May, Andy Haldane, David Bellwood, Bernard Lietaer, John Arquilla, Sarah Fortune, Massoud Amin, Dan Nocera, Geoffrey West, Willie Smits, George Bonanno, Richard Davidson, Clifford Saron, Amishi Jha, Robert Axelrod, Frans de Waal, William Ury, Hijazi Eed, Frederic Masson, Josh Weiss and everyone involved with the Abraham Path in Palestine, Patrick Meier, Josh Nesbit, Rob Munro, Sinan Aral, Greg Fontenot, Kevin Dunbar, Gary Slutkin and the entire organization of CeaseFire, Noah Idechong, Valdis Krebs, Rose Goslinga, Ned Breslin, Rod Salm and the Reef Resilience scientists working around the world, Charles Allen and the late (great) Pam Dashiell, Ann Guerry, David Rand, and Robert Kirkpatrick. A special thank you to Janet Ginsburg, for her thoughtful commentary on the manuscript. The work of many notable organizations, including the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the Resilience Alliance, the Community and Regional Resilience Institute, Frances Westley and the University of Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience among many others, all left an imprint on our thinking. The field of resilience is filled with some of the most remarkable and inspiring thinkers we’ve ever encountered, and it’s an honor to learn from them and introduce them to you.
Finally, a note of thanks from Ann Marie to the iced coffee served “toddy style” at Café Regular in Park Slope. Andrew wishes to thank the good people at Nero Doro café in Brooklyn, New York, for indulging him for hours on end and keeping him caffeinated as he hunched over a laptop.