Page 45 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

l berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Vries, Langer) also reviewed articles and suggested We had many outside contributors who made this proj-
authors. Editors also shared their wisdom about maps ect possible, people whose work is too often unacknowl-
and illustrations. edged. Our freelance production team—copyeditors,
In John McNeill’s conclusion to The Human Web, he compositors, and proofreaders—exerted themselves in a
mentions the forces of disorder and randomness, or manner that was nothing short of magnificent.The original
entropy, evident in a home (especially one with many page design was prepared by Jeff Potter, and compositor
small children) as well as in the universe. There are Brad Walrod took the lead in making sure that all aspects
forces of entropy at work in publishing offices, too. In of the design were fully utilized.The amazing composition
creating the BEWH in less than two years, we naturally work and extra efforts of both LindaWeidemann and Steve
had to strive for other qualities evident in human his- Tiano also deserve special attention. It is impossible to
tory, a movement toward “order, structure, and com- count how many times Linda and Brad came through in
plexity.” This effort required the shared determination of the clutch. The same holds true of our copyeditors—
an extended network of individuals. Francesca Forrest,Adam Groff,Mike Nichols,Carol Parikh,
We want to acknowledge the special contribution of Mark Siemens, Daniel Spinella, and Rosalie Wieder.
every member of our staff to this project. None of them Finally, but by no means least, our proofreaders—Mary
will forget the summer weeks when all other work took Bagg, Sue Boshers, Robin Gold, Libby Larson, Amina
a back burner to our effort to complete the BEWH on Sharma,and Barbara Spector—worked countless hours to
time. It meant long hours and immense coordination bring the BEHW into its final shape. The work of all the
as people took on new tasks in order to make sure above-mentioned individuals was invaluable.
everything that had to be done by 13 August 2004 Early on, David Christian offered to “sketch out” the
was indeed finished. In fact, the content wrap-up was great eras in human history in three major overview arti-
done on 12 August, celebrated with a bottle of cham- cles.This is the kind of grand task at which David excels,
pagne. We acknowledge the spirit, determination, and and although he may have regretted the offer, he never
willingness of the Berkshire staff that made completion complained, and produced drafts at a speed that was
of this project possible: Karen Advokaat, Rachel Chris- really super-human. The result, a set of three connected
tensen, Tom Christensen, Sarah Conrick, Debbie essays on the Foraging Era, Agrarian Era, and Modern
Dillon, Jess LaPointe, Courtney Linehan, Marcy Ross, Era, have been combined under the title This Fleeting
Gabby Templet, Peggy Thieriot, and Trevor Young. World: An Overview of Human History, that appears in
Their dedication and teamwork was inspiring in every Volume 1 and Volume 5 of the encyclopedia.
sense. Finally, we want to salute Bill McNeill and his wife
Our final effort was coordinated by Ben Kerschberg, Elizabeth. Bill celebrates his eighty-seventh birthday as
our new vice president and general manager, who this work is published, and we are counting on seeing his
joined us only days before we began the final push on set marked up with corrections for the next edition, like
the BEWH, having made the brave decision to make a his personal copy of The Rise of the West, the endpapers
career change from law to publishing. Ben calmly and of which are dense with notes. This work by no means
steadily moved the manuscript and the staff through the says it all about the history of the world, but we hope Bill
final stages and coordinated work with our composi- will agree that it provides a new vantage point for the
tors, proofreaders, and indexers. His end-of-the-day work ahead.
updates showing our steady progress added to our David Levinson & Karen Christensen
drama and helped keep everyone on target. It was dif- Berkshire Publishing Group
ficult to remember that he was in fact learning the Great Barrington, Massachusetts
whole process himself as we went along. www.berkshireworldhistory.com