Acknowledgements
As is perhaps fitting considering the subject, this book has had a long gestational period, with work on it interrupted at times both by the expansion of my own family and by the COVID-19 pandemic. I would first like to thank Olivier Hekster, who gave the book a home in the Impact of Empire series. I am most grateful to him and to Brill’s anonymous referee for their thoughtful and helpful feedback. Everyone who read and commented on the manuscript improved it, even if I did not always agree with their suggestions. It should go without saying that the inevitable errors and omissions are my responsibility alone.
At Brill, I would like to thank Giulia Moriconi and Lucas Faessen for their support of this project. Gera van Bedaf, the production editor, and the rest of the production team made the final stages of this process both straightforward and painless. Samantha Rohrig copy-edited the manuscript with a careful eye and compiled the indices, two gargantuan tasks. Credits for the images used in this monograph are given in the list of figures, but I would also like to here acknowledge those who helped me in sourcing and ordering images, often at very short notice: John Thomassen (American Numismatic Society); David Weidgenannt (Universität Wien); Elizabeth Bray (British Museum); and Pierre-Emmanuel Judas (Bibliothèque nationale de France).
I gratefully acknowledge that financial support for this project was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Their scholarship and postdoctoral opportunities enabled me to concentrate on my research. The funds available to contract faculty members at York University made it possible for me to employ a copy editor / indexer.
This book began as a PhD dissertation supervised by Jonathan Edmondson, and I thank him and the other members of my dissertation committee for their guidance and suggestions over the years. Brent Shaw was the external examiner and has remained a steadfast supporter of the project. Michele George has been a fount of practical advice. Sections of the argument in draft form were presented as conference or seminar papers at meetings in Toronto, ON; Quebec City, QC; St. Catharines, ON; Montreal, QC; Hamilton, ON; and Cambridge, UK, and I am grateful to the audiences on those occasions for their questions and discussion.
I am indebted to those who create, curate, and maintain the many excellent electronic resources in my field – too many to list here by name. I would like to acknowledge the enormous investment of time and energy such websites require. This labour is too rarely valued by academic institutions. I hope the experiences of scholars during the COVID-19 pandemic – when electronic resources were all many of us had access to for months on end – will change this.
As Helen Sword (2017) has told us, taking inspiration from Charles Bukowski’s 1992 poem, academics need air and light and time and space to write. To this end, I am extraordinarily grateful to all the early childhood educators and teachers who have cared for and taught my children. Without these wonderful people I would never have found the breathing room to string two sentences together. Extra special thanks go to Laura Kuypers, who was my children’s nanny during a critical stage in this book’s revision process. Without her the project would have stalled permanently.
Friends and family were always stalwart supporters. Catherine Cooper and Sarah Blake kept me on track with revisions and celebrated my successes. Fiona Rawle and Laura Hug made the balancing act of academia and motherhood less lonely. My mother, Frances Burton, stepped in repeatedly to help with childcare at critical moments, for which I am grateful beyond measure.
There are no words to express my love for and gratitude to my husband and my children, who have endured the demands this book imposed on our family with good humour, patience, and kindness. Ben championed the project from its outset and was a constant source of encouragement and moral support. The final version of the manuscript benefitted considerably from his careful observations. Without Ben’s unwavering commitment to being a true partner at home – both before and during the pandemic – this book would still be languishing on my computer. Eamon and Pippa have always expressed enthusiasm about this project, even if they are both still too young to read the final result. They are the best antidote for hours spent alone in a library. I am certain they will all be relieved to hear less about fecunditas in the future. This book is dedicated, with love, to them.