First of all, I would like to thank my wife Miriam, my daughter Laura, my parents Peter and Sarah, and my brother Amos for their warmth and encouragement over the course of this project. Secondly, I extend my heartfelt gratitude to Myles Thompson, the publisher of Columbia University Press (CUP), for granting me the opportunity to work with such an esteemed publishing house. I am also grateful to Stephen Wesley, CUP’s associate editor, for his excellent editorial assistance. I would also like to thank Cathy Felgar, Ben Kolstad, Julia Kushnirsky, and all other staff at Columbia and its affiliates who were involved with this project.
Mindy Flanagan, coordinator of the University of California, San Diego’s Business Internships for International Students program, deserves considerable credit for facilitating the internships of Jane Chang, Richa Kurana, Ignacio Serra, Koki Tsutsumi, and Shiraho Yanagi. The aforementioned students assisted with some of the wide array of research tasks entailed by a project of this scope. Ms. Yanagi, who not only assisted with research but also helped translate some pertinent Japanese historical writings that had never been translated into English before, deserves special acknowledgment in this regard. As well, thanks to Yayi Hsu for assisting with the promotion of the project.
I also owe a debt of gratitude to the helpful librarians at the Central Library in downtown San Diego, the Copley Library at the University of San Diego, the Rudolph East Asian Library at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Perry-Castañeda Library at the University of Texas, Austin. I would also like to thank the legendary investor, entrepreneur, and author John Bogle for taking the time to peruse earlier drafts of this work and offer his feedback and enthusiasm.
Other family members that I would like to acknowledge include my mother-in-law Anna, Uncle Bob and Aunt Monica, Aunt Eliane, my sisters-in-law Megan and Regina, my brother-in-law Sergio, Jane, Mauricio, Bruna, Isabella, Mark and Jennifer, Susan and Les, Dafna, Paul and Cathy, Marco and Corinne, Laure and George, Adrien, Genevieve, Anthony, Phillipe, the Ledermans, Kings, Cherniaks, Fullers, Albert and Patricia Kadosh, Miriam’s extended family, and others.
Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank my friends and colleagues: Robert Bell, Simon Eisner, Jeremy Tiefenbrun, Nicky Allison, Russ Weinzimmer, Ieden and Harlen Wall, Nisha Sawhney, Tom and Audra Flaherty, Eric Cohen, Joseph Calandro, Cheri Hill, Hannah Bui, Ron Hall, Asten Izumi, Ryan Caudill, Nathan Stinson, Jerry Ryan, Mark Oliver Yu, Oren Paz, Alejandro Martinez, Dean Linden, Uriel Cohen, Thomas Napier, Jon Davis, Heath, and Lori.