In Pursuit: Of Happiness and Good Government

Acknowledgments

[ 271 ] Acknowledgments I wrote In Pursuit while continuing to enjoy the gift of time to read, think, and write that the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research has afforded me for almost six years now. My special thanks go to William Hammett, president of the Manhattan Institute, who not only believes that ideas should drive the debate about policy but acts on that belief. My thanks go as well to the Bradley Foundation, which for the last two years has funded a fellowship to help support my work. Leslee Spoor took time from her other responsibilities at the Manhattan Institute to make my life much more trouble-free than I deserve . David Shipley was endlessly patient as he ran interference for me at Simon and Schuster. Joan Kennedy Taylor watched the book develop and, as in the old days, told me how to make numerous improvements . Walter Olsen read an early draft and suggested a far better way of opening the book—which also finally went by the wayside, but had pointed me in the right direction. Michael Novak brought his unique combination of erudition and humanity to my discussion of Aristotle’s concept of happiness and thereby improved it immeasurably . I thank each of them. Part 3 of In Pursuit draws with little formal citation from one intellectual tradition that is commonly identified with John Locke and Adam Smith and another commonly identified with Edmund Burke. (Some will find these traditions incompatible. I do not. My feeling is, if Burke could admire Smith, why can’t I admire both?) There are so few citations because often I haven’t any idea which of the many people who said the same thing in different ways over the last three centuries should get the credit. I will take this opportunity to acknowledge my great, if diffuse, debt to two contemporary exponents of classical liberalism, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, and of conservatism , Russell Kirk and Robert Nisbet. [ 272 ] ack nowledgments This has been an intimidating book to write, with many moments when I was sure it was a rotten idea. James Q. Wilson probably doesn’t even remember, but a few words of his no-nonsense encouragement in the early days stayed with me throughout the effort. Others whose interest and encouragement at critical moments were appreciated include Michael Joyce, Edward Crane, Richard Vigilante, and Miles Hoffman. This has also been a difficult book to write. Now that it’s over, I cannot imagine having done it without my editor, Alice Mayhew, and her commitment to getting the best that her authors have in them no matter how peculiar their ideas. To Alice, thanks and admiration. And Catherine. This time, she was busy with a book of her own, not to mention a baby, so it wasn’t until the penultimate version—or what we thought at the time was the penultimate version—that she began working on In Pursuit, finding the lapses that so obviously need attention after she points them out. Until then, all she contributed was happiness itself. ...