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Preface
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ix This volume contains a selection of contributions from a conference entitled “The Old World and the New: Exchanges Between America and Europe in the Age of Jefferson,”held at the Salzburg Seminar in Salzburg, Austria, on October 12–16, 2005.The setting for this conference was very symbolic, since the Salzburg Seminar was established by an idealistic group of Harvard graduate students in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War to teach short courses on American civilization. The founders were keen to distance themselves from the political imperatives of the Cold War, but the Seminar essentially became a place of Atlantic exchange, with a particular mission to explain the United States to Europe.The Seminar was also the impetus, and for many years the host, of the European Association for American Studies. In the 1960s the focus of the Seminar changed, as it began to present courses with a broader global content, and the former emphasis on the United States had all but disappeared by 1979. Readers interested in learning more about the early years of the Salzburg Seminar are directed to a volume written by Thomas H. Eliot and Lois J. Eliot entitled The Salzburg Seminar:The First Forty Years (Ipswich, MA, 1987). The theme of the conference on which this volume is based reflects the original concerns of the Seminar and the subject of a book by its former assistant director, Robert O. Mead, entitled Atlantic Legacy: Essays in American-European Cultural History (New York, 1969).The conference was one of a regular series of international conferences sponsored by the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies under the direction of Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy. There were twenty-one participants from Europe and the United States,including Frank Cogliano,Julie Flavell, Eliga Gould, Frank Kelleter, Charlene Lewis, James Lewis, Jeanie Grant Moore, Peter Nicolaisen, Peter Onuf, Andrew O’Shaughnessy, Sarah Pearsall ,Sandra Rebok,Martha Rojas,Leonard Sadosky,Richard Ryerson,James Sofka, Lucia Stanton, Gaye Wilson, and Philipp Ziesche. John McCusker delivered the keynote speech, and Gordon Wood gave the farewell address. The sessions were held in the splendid conference facilities of the Salzburg Seminar at the Schloss Leopoldskron,which dates,appropriately,from Preface s x the eighteenth century, having been built for Archbishop Leopold Firmian in 1736. In addition to thanking all the conference attendees for their participation , the editors wish to thank the staffs of the Salzburg Seminar and the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, whose efforts allowed the conference to move forward for the enrichment and enjoyment of all involved. In particular, special thanks go the Salzburg Seminar’s American Studies Alumni Association Leader, Marty Gecek; to Program Director Susanna Seidl-Fox; and to Conference and Banqueting Manager Markus Hiljuk. At the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, special thanks go to Assistant to the Saunders Director, Sanders Goodrich, who coordinated the October 2005 conference; and to her successor , Joan Hairfield, who coordinated a May 2006 meeting of the editors at the Jefferson Library on the International Center’s campus. For the use of the library, special thanks go to Thomas Jefferson Foundation Librarian Jack Robertson and Library Services Coordinator Eric Johnson. A final note of thanks goes to the University of Virginia Press and to editor Richard Holway for taking on this project and seeing it through to production. andrew j. o’shaughnessy Preface ...