Toward the start of 2020, my co-editors of this collective volume, Imelda Chłodna-Błach and Artur Mamcarz-Plisiecki, concurred with me that the dramatic global upheavals happening at this time presented a propitious sign for attempting, as soon as possible, to realize a dream of Mortimer J. Adler, which was one day to globalize his Great Books/Great Ideas Movement. Our only hesitancy about going forward with this project was whether we could find an internationally recognized publishing house to consider reviewing our proposal (which Brill Publishing’s Philosophy and Religion [par] Series Editor Rod Nicholls had the courage to do) and obtaining help of a copy editor capable of bringing this project across the finish line for a spring 2021 printing. As anyone who has edited a book series knows, excellent editors, and, especially, excellent copy editors are as rare as miracle workers—and very often resemble them in their abilities. Such being the case, without the help of a first-rate copy editor, we would not have seriously considered going ahead with this collective volume.
Happily, I knew just the person we needed to contact: Elizabeth D. Boepple, a copy editor par excellence with whom, a couple of decades ago, I had previously worked when I was Executive Editor of the Value Inquiry Book Series (vibs) for the Dutch publisher Editions Rodopi, B.V. Despite that Elizabeth had some recent physical problems that would impair her ability to use one arm, she graciously agreed to take on this difficult job. Without her having done so, I doubt this collective would ever have been ready for review in time to be published early in 2021. Likely, it would never have seen the publishing light of day. For this reason, she deserves kudos. It is to her that I devote this Acknowledgements page. Elizabeth and I would, also, like to acknowledge the tremendous debt we owe to our personal friend and mentor Richard T. Hull (R.I.P.) for the great editorial and life-skill training he unselfishly shared with us over many decades.
We also wish to acknowledge with our gratitude that translation assistance for the Polish contributions to this volume was funded by the Polish Minister of Science and Higher Education within the program under the name “Regional Initiative of Excellence” in 2019–2022, project number: 028/rid/2018/19, the amount of funding: 11 742 500 pln.
Peter A. Redpath
Founder and ceo
Aquinas School of Leadership
Cave Creek, Arizona, USA