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Acknowledgments
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Writing is always a lonely and difficult process, and the task is even more stressful when one is in pain. From 2003 to 2005, as I was working on early drafts of this book, I suffered from extreme arthritisinbothhips.Ihavenowhadtwohipreplacementsandfeel like I am nineteen from the hips down. I first of all want to thank my surgeon and all of my friends for seeing me through this time of trial. The following friends and colleagues talked with me about this project, made suggestions and corrections, and encouraged me while I was writing. First, I would like to thank Peter Onuf, known to some as “the master puppeteer of uppity Negroes.” Peter has been a wonderful critic and supporter of my work, and his humor and enormous knowledge of the Jeffersonian world have been invaluable to me while writing this project. I also want to thank Jan Ellen Lewis, whose article “The White Jeffersons” taught me a great deal about family and family secrets. Another important influence has been the pioneering and brilliant scholarship of Annette Gordon-Reed, whose book sparked a great discussion in my seminar, as in the scholarly world at large, on the question of national identity. Annette, like the late Thelma Willis Foote, has had an impact on how I think about the writing of American history and the place of black people in the American past. Second,thefollowinggroupofhistoriansandfriends,overmeals, drinks, and long phone conversations, played an important role in thewritingofthisbook:HenryAbelove,RobertAbzug,EmilyAlbu, Robert Aldrich, Glenn Altschuler, David Blight, Henrik Bodker, Acknowledgments Walker000fm.indd xi Walker000fm.indd xi 10/24/08 11:38:04 AM 10/24/08 11:38:04 AM xii | Acknowledgments Brian Connolly, Robin Einhorn, Joanne Freeman, Harris Friedberg , Susan Glenn, Norman Kutcher, Daniel Littlefield, Valinda Littlefield, Mel McCombie, Richard Mendoza, Dirk Moses, Bruce Poch, Fernando Purcell, Andres Resendez, Rosalind Rosenberg, Nick Salvatore, Mike Sherry, Richard Slotkin, Valerie Smith, Jennifer Spear, Blake Stimson, and John Sweet. At Davis I have benefited enormously from conversations with Joanne Diehl, Omnia El Shakry, Karen Halttunen, Clarence Major, Lisa Materson, Riche Richardson, Sudipta Sen, John Smolenski, Alan Taylor, and David Van Leer. I would also like to thank Kate Gilbert for critically reading the manuscript and teaching me that commas are important. A great debt of thanks is owed to my editor, Richard Holway, the history and social sciences editor of the University of Virginia Press, who waited patiently for this little book. It has been my great pleasure at Davis to work with graduate students in the American history and cultural studies PhD programs. So I would like to thank David Barber, Brian Benhnken, Barbara Ceptus, Ruma Chopra, KellyHopkins,IrisJerkes,KathyLittles,LouisMoore,andGregory Smithers, whose forthcoming work on comparative miscegenation in Australia and the United States has been invaluable for understanding how unexceptional the United States is. Finally, this book is dedicated to my two favorite teachers in graduateschool,thelateWinthropD.JordanandLeonF.Litwack. Together they were two of the most important historians of their generation. At Berkeley in the sixties, History 167A and 167B were twoofthemostpopularcourseofferingsinthehistorycurriculum. Bothofthesemenwereinspiringteachers—thoughtful,kind,and generous to their students. I have often asked myself, after leaving Berkeley, how these two white men put up with my ironic and contrarian sensibility. Walker000fm.indd xii Walker000fm.indd xii 10/24/08 11:38:04 AM 10/24/08 11:38:04 AM [34.230.84.106] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 07:36 GMT) Mongrel Nation Walker000fm.indd xiii Walker000fm.indd xiii 10/24/08 11:38:04 AM 10/24/08 11:38:04 AM Walker000fm.indd xiv Walker000fm.indd xiv 10/24/08 11:38:04 AM 10/24/08 11:38:04 AM ...