Acknowledgments
Many scholars inspired this study, including Ann Blair’s ‘Too Much to Know’ and John Philip Reid’s ‘Constitutional History of the American RevÂolution’. Tom Schwartz dispatched me to discover the connection between merit and process.
John Larson (‘Internal Improvement: National Public Works and the Promise of Popular Government in the Early United States’) directed my attention to stakeholder claims on parliamentary procedures. I owe my appointment at Purdue University to John. Series Editor Jeremy Black gave encouragement early on, together with a critical review of the completed and revised manuscript. Two anonymous reviewers supplied corÂrections and guidance. Editors at Ashgate and Routledge were most helpful in their detailed guidance, especially senior editor Max Novick. Tom Gray was there at the beginning: ‘John Milton deserves hanging’ launched the study in the Hilton Ballroom on Sixth Avenue.The gathering of 9 July 2016 at 1 Parliament Street, SW1A 2NE, offered hospitality to a complete stranger whose only recommendation was an interest in procedures of Westminster provenance. A pessimist would supÂpose that the inevitable errors of perspective and detail to be found in this study will discourage similar hospitality to strangers. The welcome that met Josef Redlich on his arrival deserves equal accomplishment. In my case, that’s probably too much to ask for.
Daughter Dr Teresa Shanklin and sons Aaron, Nathan and Benjamin Aschenbrenner were unfailingly helpful in answering my questions. These ranged from agent-based modelling to NetLogo simulations of ‘turtles’ conÂsuming and expending energy in the assembly and from the state of print culture in the Renaissance to strategic choice theory at work in the military history of the eighteenth century. Archivists at Kew Gardens and College Park were diligent and most patient. Special mention goes to the staff at the Bodleian Law Library and the Parliamentary Archives at Victoria Tower. But for the relentless efficiency of Ms Linda Chizmar of Fairbanks, Alaska, nothing would have reached the page fit to print.
For M.