Acknowledgements

As I often skip over acknowledgements in my own reading (unless I think I might be mentioned), I will keep this very short. Family, friends, and colleagues provided support throughout the writing process. I thank Drs. Jeffery Gentry, Ken Hicks, David Newcomb, Lillian Daughaday, and Bruce Garrison for many stimulating discussions (and arguments) about social issues. Thanks go to Drs. Mary Millikin, Mary Mackie, and Maurice (Rick) Richter for their critical comments on the manuscript; to Ken Browne, of Great Britain, who encountered the glossary on the Internet and made several excellent suggestions for terms I had overlooked or never knew; and to Pamela Holway, senior editor at Athabasca University Press, for believing in the book almost from the opening lines. I am grateful to Dr. Davis Joyce for our discussions about big ideas and the struggles of writing and life itself. I thank the many students who have challenged me over the years to put it in plainer English. I give thanks to Shelly Borgstrom, who helped me through much of the formatting of the manuscript and provided administrative assistance in leading a fractious bunch in the School of Liberal Arts. Thank you to Dorothy and Irwin Fingerit, who provided a much needed break from it all. Finally, I thank my family for putting up with my early morning and weekend writing habits (among other idiosyncrasies) over the years.

In addition, I am beholden to authors I have never met who helped me in the mutually stimulating thinking and writing process. Some of them are listed on the reference pages, but I would be remiss if I did not single out T. Robert Malthus, Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, and, especially, Max Weber. While more contemporary authors helped in the synthesis presented here, particularly Gerhard Lenski and Marvin Harris (although I must take full responsibility for any missteps), we are all standing on the shoulders of giants—a phrase, as Robert Merton taught us, that has a long history and much truth.