Acknowledgments

I am indebted to Michael Kellogg, as always, for invaluable research assistance; to my colleagues Elisheva Carlebach and Martina Steer for help on the fine points of holy sin; to Abram de Swaan for a needed caution on (mis)interpreting Norbert Elias; to Larry Wolff and Stephen Gross, successive heads of the Center for European and Mediterranean Studies at NYU, for the chance to try out the ideas expressed here in classes there; and to Katy Fleming and Lauren Benton for making that possible.