I have accumulated the usual academic debts in writing this book, but par- ticularly to the sta√ of the Public Record O≈ce and to Tom Green, who has administered encouragement and criticism in equal doses. The personal debts, however, are just as significant. I wrote this book while I was participating in a restructuring of the University of Houston; I was president of the . Faculty Senate in 1998. Intense participation in academic politics and working on the book thus exacted a double cost on my children, who were then adolescents. My gratitude to my wife, Patricia Rochford Palmer, and to my children, Ned and Elspeth, is thus.
