Acknowledgments

In recent years, I have had the good fortune to take part in several interdisci­plinary collaborations on the workings and impacts of modern regulatory governance. By contrast, Fraud: An American History from Barnum to Madoff reflects a more traditional sole-authored work of history.

Several organizations extended financial support for my research and writ­ing. The American Council of Learned Societies provided me with a yearlong Burkhardt Fellowship that I took to the National Humanities Center, where I found good fellowship and a wonderfully conducive environment for reading and analytical thinking. I spent a delightful and productive semester at the Har­vard Business School as the holder of the Thomas McCraw Fellowship in United States Business History. In addition, I enjoyed two separate leaves from the Duke History Department (one partially supported by the Hunt Family Fund), as well as small research and conference travel grants from Duke's Trinity Col­lege of Arts & Sciences.

Library and archival staff proved invaluable direction for navigating far- flung collections and the ever-burgeoning resources available digitally. I would like to single out Ellen Zazzarino and Coi Drummond-Gehrig at the Western History Department of the Denver Public Library, Janet Linde at the New York Stock Exchange Archives, Laura Lenard of Historical Collections at the Har­vard Business School's Baker Library, Eliza Robertson of the National Humani­ties Center, and, at Duke, Elizabeth Dunn, Lynn Eaton, Carson Holloway, Kel­ley Lawton, and Jacqueline Reid.

A number of current and former Duke students have furnished superb re­search assistance, identifying digital sources, chasing down leads, and scoping out secondary literature and archival holdings.

Gloria Taylor-Neal have handled logistics deftly around RA assignments, re­search travel, and grants.

I have received benefit from constructive feedback during research presenta­tions or seminars given at Oxford's Said Business School; Harvard Business School; Duke's Fuqua Business School; the New York City Market Cultures group; the University of Pennsylvania Economic History Workshop; the Bai- roch Institute for Economic History at the University of Geneva; Duke's Eco­nomic Sociology Workshop; Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy; the Uni­versity of Chicago Law School; the University of British Columbia Law School; Duke Law School; the University of Minnesota Legal History Workshop; the Triangle Legal History Seminar; the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History in Frankfurt; the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC; Sor­bonne University-Paris 3; and annual meetings of the American Society for Legal History, the Business History Conference, the European Business History Association, the Policy History Conference, and the American Council of Learned Societies. I am especially grateful to Duke's Kenan Institute for Ethics, led by Noah Pickus and Suzanne Shanahan, which funded a crucial daylong workshop on the entire manuscript early in 2015, and to Walter Sinnott- Armstrong and Amber Diaz Pearson, who organized that event.

Many individuals helped me develop a workable approach to a sprawling topic, suggested useful scholarship, and/or commented on chapter drafts.

Within the broader Research Triangle, my interlocutors/readers/critics in­cluded Kevin Anderson, Tom Birkland, Al Brophy, Mary Beth Chopas, Tony Freyer, Geoffrey Harpham, Melissa Jacoby, Julia Rudolph, Benjamin Water­house, and David Zonderman. Among those further afield, I am indebted to Peter Baum, Hartmut Berghoff, Susanna Blumenthal, Holly Brewer, Fabrizio Cafaggi, Dan Carpenter, Cary Coglianese, Jonathan Coopersmith, Marc Eisner, Neil Fligstein, Patrick Fridenson, Christy Ford, Robert Gordon, Joanna Gris- inger, Per Hansen, Will Hausman, Roger Horowitz, Robert Horwitz, Richard John, Geoffrey Jones, Pam Laird, Naomi Lamoreaux, Marc Levinson, Jonathan Levy, Stephen Mihm, Brad Miller, Sharon Murphy, Bill Novak, Saule Omarova, Julia Ott, Lynne Paine, Dan Raff, Mark Rose, Malcolm Salter, Laura Phillips Sawyer, Phil Scranton, Dick Sylla, James Taylor, Steve Usselman, Sean Vanatta, Dick Vietor, Dan Wadhwani, Elizabeth Warren, Barbara Welke, Mark Wilson, JoAnne Yates, and Christine Zumello.

David Gilmartin and the late Jonathon Ocko helped me set issues about the rule of law in a comparative context. Wendy Woloson graciously shared excel­lent primary sources on dodgy nineteenth-century businesses, as well as her keen understanding of historical discourse over marketing deceptions.

After I spent a couple of years’ research on a different book project, Law­rence Friedman convinced me to drop it and pursue this one instead. I am grateful for his persuasiveness about the imperative of researching and writing a lively kind of legal/policy history that speaks to nonacademics as well as a broad audience of scholars. Roughly a decade ago, I embarked on two longer- term conversations that had profound implications for this book. One was with Christopher McKenna, then launching his own inquiry into the history of busi­ness fraud. Through many discussions, Chris and I clarified how each of us would tackle dimensions of an enormous subject, shared methodological chal­lenges, and pushed each other to sharpen arguments and narrative approaches. A second series of exchanges took place with David Moss, which led to inter­disciplinary projects on regulatory policy and engagement with policymakers. The resulting collaborations, first with the Tobin Project and then at Kenan Institute for Ethics with the Rethinking Regulation group, have allowed me to see more clearly how historical analysis can engage with other social science disciplines and inform contemporary policy deliberations.

Since 2010, I have worked closely with Jonathan Wiener, a legal scholar, and Lori Bennear, an environmental economist, in creating the Rethinking Regula­tion group at Duke. I have learned an enormous amount from them about the nature of risk, the frequency with which regulatory interventions generate un­intended consequences, the dilemmas of balancing conflicting policy goals, and the challenges of designing adaptive regulatory institutions.

The Business History Review has published one article, “Private Cops on the Fraud Beat: The Limits of American Business Self-Regulation, 1895-1932” (2009), and one short contribution to a “Corporate Reputation Roundtable” (2013), which appear below in revised form, with permission.

Many years into this project, after I had begun to read some behavioral eco­nomics, I persuaded my two sons, Zachary and Aaron, to dip into that field. As soon as they encountered the psychology of precommitment mechanisms, I was in trouble. In the fall of 2013, as I embarked on a year's leave, they issued an ultimatum—finish a full manuscript draft by the start of the following school year or see them donate, in my name, to the reelection campaign of a politician whose views differ rather significantly from mine. They kept up the pressure over the subsequent twelve months, indulged me by listening to the occasional story about a given fraud episode, and even allowed one short extension. I am glad to say I met that adjusted deadline. (Zachary further brought news cover­age of Operation Choke Point to my attention.) My sisters, Ellen Balleisen and Wendy Finger, my brother-in-law, Michael Finger, and my mother, Carolyn Balleisen, took gentler tacks in encouraging me; in the case of Wendy, that en­couragement remained unfailing even as she lost a battle with cancer.

Karin Shapiro has lived with this book from its inception. For stretches, piles of related books and files invaded our dining room table.

I have had the great fortune to chance upon some remarkable mentors. From my first weeks at college, I have relied on Stan Katz for advice about my intel­lectual and career trajectory. During and after graduate school, David Davis showed me how to adapt ethnography and the history of ideas to the analysis of institutions and political conflicts. Since my first year at Duke, Cynthia Herrup has been an expert guide to the challenges of doing legal history without a JD, and to the mysteries of navigating the research university. I hope they will each see traces of their influence in this book, which is dedicated to them.