Acknowledgments

Scarce is the book that is published without the help of a vast number of friends, colleagues, and professionals. Yet this is just such a book: we could never have done it without ourselves (although, truth to tell, each has substantial doubts about the other). Admittedly, there were a few scattered individuals who attempted to help us out whenever they experienced a rare moment of sobriety or brief respite from disillusion and, either for reasons of exhaustion or lack of dedication to their own self-destruction, offered to lend a hand. However puzzling such altruism might be, our own lassitude released us, albeit briefly, from our general skepticism about the worth of humanity in this epoch of the Misanthropocene and allowed their assistance. Among these hapless individuals are May Beldray, Elisa Bizzotto, Peter Coles, Aimee Genell, Ian Keliher, Brendan King, Frank Krause, the late Derek Mahon, Robert Pruett, Michael Shaw, Martin Sorrell, Martha Vicinus, Becky Walker, and our Oxford University Press reviewers. Less hapless and even more helpful are those indefatigable members of the editorial and production team who brought this book together: Alyssa Callan, who guided the project into production with grace and good humor; Afrose Anwar, who managed the production with peerless efficiency; Holly Mitchell, who came to the project late, but stayed anyway; Prakash Jayaraman, who saw the book into print, happily and readably so; and, last but by no means least, Elda Granata, whose attention to detail, kind support, and generosity have left us wondering whether we are really living in the Misanthropocene after all.