Acknowledgements

I am very grateful that this project came to fruition despite Alex’ premature death and want to thank numerous people for their tremendous help.

The volume has been much improved as a result of the helpful comments received on individual chapters from the following external reviewers: Anne Barron, Thorsten Brato, Stephan Gramley, Ellen Grünkemeier, Theresa Heyd, Jane Hodson, Claudia Lange, and Christiane Meierkord. I would like to thank these colleagues for their time, effort, and thoughtful comments.

My sincere thanks also go to Stephanie Hackert, who has taken her responsibility as series editor extremely seriously. Her meticulous and attentive reading of the contributions at various stages of production made me aware of a number of shortcomings and prevented the one or other lapse from reaching our readership. I would also like to thank her for her continuous enthusiasm and encouragement over the years, especially after Alex’ passing away.

Finally, I would like to thank Daniela Kauschke and Johanna Reckers for their diligent work in formatting and proof-reading individual contributions and Jonas Wagner for his tremendous help in the final stages of proofing the entire manuscript.