It is a pleasure to thank Lewis Bateman of the University of North
Carolina Press for first suggesting and then encouraging the writing of
this volume. I would also like to thank Richard L Kagan, Stephen
Innes, and Lucette Valensi, who helped define its direction. Charles
Feigenoff contributed his outstanding editorial skills, and Lottie Mc-
Cauley saw the manuscript through several stages of production.

The Corcoran Department of History of the University of Virginia
and the Department of History of the Johns Hopkins University pro-
vided the support for us to exchange ideas during the preparation of
these chapters. Charles Tilly, David William Cohen, and William T.
Rowe visited Charlottesville and presented drafts of their essays to a
graduate seminar in social history that William B. Taylor and I con-
ducted at the University of Virginia in the Fall of 1983. Many ideas
formulated in our weekly meetings with the students found their way
into this book, and I thank all who participated in the seminar. A few
months later, the contributors met as a group in Baltimore to review
their drafts again and to continue the collective reexamination of the
questions and methods of social history that stimulated the writing of
this volume.

Olivier Zunz
Charlottesville, Virginia
Spring 1985

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