Acknowledgments
The book is the result of long research that would have been difficult to accomplish without the support of many generous individuals. They all deserve to be named here and assured of my deep gratitude. The first outstanding scholar to be mentioned is Professor Wolfram Siemann, who became my tutor in Munich fifteen years ago and since that time has never been deaf to my frequent and demanding requests. More than that, he has actively supported me up to the present day and offered valuable comments on the first draft of the book. Not much later I met another eminent German historian, Wolf Dietrich Gruner, who became equally helpful in the following years and patient during our scholarly debates. The third scholar with great expertise in the 19th century history of Germany and Europe is James Brophy, who supervised my Fulbright fellowship in Delaware and offered many recommendations after reading my imperfect texts. I can also never forget the kind and helpful supervision of Birgit Aschmann during the six months I spent at her department in Berlin; it was during that time that I was able to advance my research a lot. From the host of other historians to whom I am eternally indebted I must mention Robert D. Billinger, John Eibner, Guido Franzinetti, Michael Gehler, Brendan Haidinger, Mark Jarrett, Michael Jonas, David Laven, Helmut Mojem, Walter Sauer, Alan Sked, Reinhard Stauber, Arnold Suppan, Karl Vocelka and Radosław Paweł Żurawski vel Grajewski. As this work extends beyond the field of history and into the spheres of political science and international law, I am grateful for the useful advice of IR scholars Tobias Lemke and Daniel Green, legal experts Frederik Dhondt, Raphaël Cahen and last but not least the young legal historian Wouter De Rycke, whose recent conclusions on the mid-19th century peace movement confirm the validity of the security perspective and resulting findings introduced in this monograph. My colleagues at the University of Pardubice, Jiří Kubeš and Pavel Marek, must also be acknowledged because their readiness to meet my usually immodest wishes made the completion of this project a much easier affair. The most crucial person in bringing the book to life was Helen Golden, who painstakingly revised and proofread the whole text. Like Atlas condemned to the responsibility for holding up the heavens, she shouldered the gigantic task of improving my flawed English. Furthermore, due to her excellent linguistic skills and knowledge of other languages she was able to revise my usually very poor translations from German, French and Italian. Without her hard work this book could never have been prepared for publication. It is probably not necessary to add that despite the invaluable contribution of all these people I alone bear full responsibility for any shortcomings that this book might have.