Acknowledgements
Family typically comes last in a list of acknowledgments, but that seems insufficient for our respective spouses. They have by now endured three different phases of the Canon of Negotiation initiative over 14 years, not to mention spinoff projects. And not only endured: Elaine and Rodd have been bulwarks to this project, and sources of advice on everything from law to layout. At least this time around they have not had to put up with even a single scheduled editorial call at 1 AM; by now, it looks like
we have become a bit more efficient at this.
During what pass for working hours, a long list of people made this book possible—most of all, our 106 contributors. Their quality of work speaks for itself in these pages. But beyond that, we want to thank them most for their unfailing good humor with our many requests. Some took on this work even in the context of other assignments that would have crushed lesser professionals. An obvious example is our military negotiation expert Leonard Lira, who scheduled his particular hour-long prewriting conference call with us at 3 AM his time—because he was then working as director of operations for all NATO military forces in Kabul. Even the Taliban, he said, had to sleep sometime.1
Len is emblematic of the commitment our authors have brought to their task, but he is not alone in having gone above and beyond any reasonable call of duty. A team at Marquette University Law School has had a less obvious, but indispensable role. We particularly appreciate the time and care Andrea’s assistant Carrie Kratochvil put into supporting the myriad of administrative functions surrounding this book. Andrea’s research assistants, meanwhile, dispatched with aplomb a remarkable amount of interdisciplinary cite-checking, and double-checking. Our thanks go to Nicholas Burkett, Blake Heiman, April Kutz, Sean McCarthy and Daniel Simandle for their conscientiousness, as well as for devoting more time to this project than any of them expected.
Institutional players we have relied on include, as always, Marquette University Law School, not least in its generous hosting of the most ambitious of the three symposia we conducted in the run-up to this book. For the other symposia, we are indebted to the hospitality of Nadja Alexander and her then Hong Kong-based program, and to the courtesy and flexibility of the International Association for Conflict Management, in allowing us to direct two sessions at its conference in Leiden to this
purpose. Our publisher DRI Press has been a pleasure to work with throughout, and we thank its director Sharon Press, associate director Kitty Atkins and most of all, administrative coordinator Debra Berghoff, whose production effort and skill have both been extraordinary.
Returning to our contributors, we would like to highlight three who have exemplified the perseverance that progress in our field demands. Former U.S. Ambassador John McDonald, construction lawyer Jim Groton, and scholar Morton Deutsch all volunteered new and incisive material after the age of 90. Perseverance, in fact, is literally the last word in John's new chapter for this book. (The chapter is ostensibly about peer mediation in schools, but really about what working in this field takes.) We will give the last word to Mort, who sadly, as of early 2017, is no longer with us. For his 95th birthday party in 2015 his colleagues at Columbia University recruited dozens of his former students for an all-day affair honoring his work. Running into one of us in a doorway during a break, Mort (by then using a walker) effectively stopped traffic. Distinguished professors lined up on both sides of the doorway as Mort was seized, not by the celebration of his illustrious career, but by the opportunity to discuss on-the-spot what he intended to write next, for this book.
Now that's a contributor, in every sense.
Note
1 In the same call, Len illustrated in one sentence why negotiation is now so important to the military. With a multinational force to work through, he said, he had so far learned how to say “thank you” in 17 languages.
we have become a bit more efficient at this.
During what pass for working hours, a long list of people made this book possible—most of all, our 106 contributors. Their quality of work speaks for itself in these pages. But beyond that, we want to thank them most for their unfailing good humor with our many requests. Some took on this work even in the context of other assignments that would have crushed lesser professionals. An obvious example is our military negotiation expert Leonard Lira, who scheduled his particular hour-long prewriting conference call with us at 3 AM his time—because he was then working as director of operations for all NATO military forces in Kabul. Even the Taliban, he said, had to sleep sometime.1
Len is emblematic of the commitment our authors have brought to their task, but he is not alone in having gone above and beyond any reasonable call of duty. A team at Marquette University Law School has had a less obvious, but indispensable role. We particularly appreciate the time and care Andrea’s assistant Carrie Kratochvil put into supporting the myriad of administrative functions surrounding this book. Andrea’s research assistants, meanwhile, dispatched with aplomb a remarkable amount of interdisciplinary cite-checking, and double-checking. Our thanks go to Nicholas Burkett, Blake Heiman, April Kutz, Sean McCarthy and Daniel Simandle for their conscientiousness, as well as for devoting more time to this project than any of them expected.
Institutional players we have relied on include, as always, Marquette University Law School, not least in its generous hosting of the most ambitious of the three symposia we conducted in the run-up to this book. For the other symposia, we are indebted to the hospitality of Nadja Alexander and her then Hong Kong-based program, and to the courtesy and flexibility of the International Association for Conflict Management, in allowing us to direct two sessions at its conference in Leiden to this
purpose. Our publisher DRI Press has been a pleasure to work with throughout, and we thank its director Sharon Press, associate director Kitty Atkins and most of all, administrative coordinator Debra Berghoff, whose production effort and skill have both been extraordinary.
Returning to our contributors, we would like to highlight three who have exemplified the perseverance that progress in our field demands. Former U.S. Ambassador John McDonald, construction lawyer Jim Groton, and scholar Morton Deutsch all volunteered new and incisive material after the age of 90. Perseverance, in fact, is literally the last word in John's new chapter for this book. (The chapter is ostensibly about peer mediation in schools, but really about what working in this field takes.) We will give the last word to Mort, who sadly, as of early 2017, is no longer with us. For his 95th birthday party in 2015 his colleagues at Columbia University recruited dozens of his former students for an all-day affair honoring his work. Running into one of us in a doorway during a break, Mort (by then using a walker) effectively stopped traffic. Distinguished professors lined up on both sides of the doorway as Mort was seized, not by the celebration of his illustrious career, but by the opportunity to discuss on-the-spot what he intended to write next, for this book.
Now that's a contributor, in every sense.
Note
1 In the same call, Len illustrated in one sentence why negotiation is now so important to the military. With a multinational force to work through, he said, he had so far learned how to say “thank you” in 17 languages.