Aberystwyth University, and especially successive Heads of Department, Colin
McInnes and Michael Foley. Financial support was also given by Sage, the publishers
of International Relations(in which the conference proceedings were first published),
and by the Aberystwyth University Conference Fund. The conference admini-
strative work was overseen as efficiently as ever by Elaine Lowe, while an early
informal sub-committee hammered out its intellectual themes (my thanks go to
Toni Erskine, Michael Foley, Andrew Linklater, Nicholas Wheeler and Michael
Williams). Various helpers at the time of the conference ensured it was fun, as well
as smoothly run: Ali Bilgic, Lisa Denney, Vincent Keating, Laura Lima, Rachel
Owen, Jennifer Pedersen, Kamila Stullerova and Iain Wilson. Alastair Finlan
organised the vidcasting of the proceedings, and the presentations can be accessed
at http://www.aber.ac.uk/interpol (link to ‘The King of Thought’ conference). The
vidcast includes an introductory roundtable, entitled ‘The indispensable books in
our field’; hearty thanks are due to Tim Dunne, Chris Hill, Caroline Kennedy-Pipe,
Nicholas Rengger and Ken Waltz himself for making this such a lively and
interesting event.
Alongside me on this project from the start has been Frazer Egerton, to whom I
owe a special debt. He acted as the conference’s willing and innovative ‘gofer’,
oversaw the special issues of International Relationsas his final job in the post of
Editorial Assistant, and subsequently has been an ever-reliable and morale-boosting
Research Assistant for this volume; he also prepared the Index. At the last minute,
Jan Ruzicka commented very helpfully on my chapters.
Earlier versions of most of the chapters in the volume were published in a two-
part special issue of International Relations (Vol. 23, nos. 2 and 3, 2009). Special thanks
are due to David Mainwaring at Sage who not only secured some funding for the
conference, but subsequently smoothed the project’s transition to Routledge and
the present volume. At Routledge, Andrew Humphrys and Rebecca Brennan
proved to be as helpful as any group of academics could wish.
Finally, at the heart of this project, has been Ken Waltz himself. He not only
supported the project from the start (in the full knowledge that he would not be
entering a den of slavish disciples), but he also attended the conference when the
saddest of personal circumstances gave him every reason not to make the arduous
journey from remote Maine to west Wales. He participated in the conference
proceedings, contributed to one of the special issues, and wrote the Foreword to
this volume. Throughout the conference he engaged with humour, tolerance,
vigour, deep insight, and quick wit to the constant questioning of his life’s work. It
has become a commonplace (after Robert Gilpin^1 ) to quip that no one loves a realist.
It may be true in general: among those who know him, it is not so in the case of
Ken Waltz.
Note
1 Robert Gilpin, ‘No one loves a political realist’, Security Studies, 5 (3), 1996, pp. 3–26.
xviii Preface