| It was almost purely a matter of chance that I began my graduate work at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in September 1981. Yet if I had studied political theory anywhere else, with a different set of teachers, this book would never have been written. Jerry King, a superb educator, encouraged me to find out what mattered to me and to take it seriously: for a teacher, no higher praise is possible. Jean Bethke Elshtain helped me make sense to myself and forced me to make sense to others. Robert Paul Wolff lent me his skepticism and his enthusiasm. William E. Connolly, from my first day as his student onward, challenged me, confused me, and changed the way I think. Joan Cocks of Mount Holyoke College read the early chapters of the manuscript and commented in detail, and I am grateful. I also wish to thank Gerard Braunthal for his support. |
| While teachers are indispensable, for true study the Jewish tradition offers this advice: "Get yourself a friend." Shane Phelan and I have been friends throughout some of the most tumultuous years of our lives. We have argued passionately, laughed uproariously, and sat stock still, looking at each other, enchanted by a glistening idea neither of us would have seen alone. I finished this book so Shane could read it. |
| I would also like to thank Doc Bachman, Rom Coles, Kim Curtis, Bob Siegfried, Philip White, Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, the Caucus for a New Political Science, Havurat ha-Ruach (Northampton, Mass.), and many members of New Jewish Agenda. The staff at Rosemont College gave clerical assistance, and Alice Keswani helped prepare the final version of the manuscript, for which she has my special thanks. |
| The University of Massachusetts Press guided me through the |
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The University of Massachusetts Press