Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Andrea Drugan of Polity for the encourage-
ment and forbearance that saw this book get off the ground
- and land again. I fi rst prepared its content for a series of
seminar papers at the University of Queensland, Australia,
and I am grateful to my colleagues in the School of Architec-
ture for their advice and encouragement, and the students of
my 2008 and 2009 M.Arch classes for their provocations and
intense discussions. A research grant from the School of
Architecture furthermore enabled me to cover the cost of
illustrations. I hope the many individuals who have offered
me valuable suggestions, corrections and criticism will forgive
the necessary economy of naming three readers who had a
decisive impact on the book’s fi nal form, specifi cally John
Harwood, Pieter Martens and Paul Walker. Polity’s anony-
mous proposal and manuscript reviewers were right on the
mark in their criticisms, and the book benefi ted substantially
from their contribution. The University of Queenland’s
Centre for the History of European Discourses provided
stimulating company and a quiet place to work when I
needed it – thanks especially to Peter Cryle, Ian Hunter and
Ryan Walter. John Macarthur helped me to iron out several
of my positions; the book records my side of our occasional
but stimulating discussions on its theme. I owe a deep debt
to Bart Verschaffel and my former colleagues at Ghent
University, where I was fortunate to return as a visiting