It is a pleasure as well as duty to thank those who have smoothed the path of this book. The idea for it emerged in conversation with Heather McCallum who has thereafter deftly shepherded the project to completion. The team at Yale, Marika Lysandrou, Rachael Lonsdale and Clarissa Sutherland, have guided production with conscientious accommodating efficiency. As ever, my agent, Simon Lloyd, has proved an effective ally and advocate. Sara Ayad undertook with tenacity and enthusiasm the initial labour of realising the images I had chosen, and Percie Edgeler kindly completed the task. Richard Mason, in copyediting, and Martin Brown, in drawing the maps, supplied vital structural support. The press’s three anonymous readers generously took pains to note deficiencies and suggest improvements, saving me from blunders and greatly improving the whole. The remaining errors and misconceptions are mine alone. Any general study exposes its author’s limitations perched atop a pyramid of others’ scholarship. To the alert and interested my own debts will be apparent throughout the text and the notes. The Principal and Fellows of Hertford College, Oxford allowed me important sabbatical research leave at an early stage of preparation. The Ludwig Fund for the Humanities at New College, Oxford generously offered a grant towards the sourcing of pictures. These two colleges have provided enriching academic havens over many years. During the writing of the book, unlucky coincidence saw the deaths of a number of close personal and academic friends and mentors. To the memory of one, for half a century the most generous, effervescent co-conspirator in the human comedy, it is dedicated.
C.J.T., October 2018