ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank those who encouraged and helped me on this project, namely, Cynthia Brokaw, Anne Gerritsen, Zoe Lin, Joseph McDermott, David Robinson, Sarah Schneewind, Rick Todhunter, Richard von Glahn, and Michelle Yeh. I am also grateful to Beverly Bossler, Paul Smith, and three anonymous readers for their critical readings. In addition, the library of the University of California, Davis, especially Dan Goldstein, Jason Newborn, and Karin Chacon, whose unflagging efforts at procuring materials made an enormous difference. Part of this research was funded by a Small Grant in Aid of Research from the University of California, Davis. Valuable suggestions from Lorri Hagman at the University of Washington Press greatly improved the manuscript. Many thanks go to Jason Alley and Joeth Zucco at the University of Washington Press for their assistance in production and to Ben Pease for supplying, in a pinch, a fine pair of maps. I thank as well Elissa Greisz for proofreading and Devon Thomas for the index. I am also obliged to the University of California Press for permission to use an excerpt from Ben Cao Gang Mu, Volume 8, Clothes, Utensils, Worms, Insects, Amphibians, Animals with Scales, Animals with Shells by Li Shizhen, translated by Paul U. Unschuld. I am grateful as well to the Nelson-Atkins Museum for permission to use the Shen Zhou painting, Gardeners, for the cover. For all remaining errors, I am solely to blame.