This book owes much to the intellectual and moral generosity of colleagues on three continents. Cambridge Cultural Social Studies series editors Jeffrey Alexander and Steven Seidman supported the project from its inception. Thanks also to Catherine Max, Chris Doubleday, and Jo Barker at Cambridge University Press. Given the sheer volume of candidate work and the need to produce an affordable and helpful volume, difficult decisions had to be made about what should be included and what excluded. Comments from a number of people helped ease this burden. Advice-givers included: Jeffrey Alexander, Mike Emmison, Ronald Jacobs, Michéle Lamont, Tim Phillips, Steven Seidman, Lyn Spillman, Eleanor Townsley, Mark Western, and the three referees of the book proposal who remain anonymous. The introductory essay has had the generous benefit of ideas, discussion, and/or feedback from Jeffrey Alexander, Mike Emmison, Stuart Hall, Steve Sherwood, Laurent Thevenot, Ken Thompson, and Loic Wacquant. My thanks to the University of Queensland, the Pavis Centre at the Open University, and the EHESS, Paris for providing supportive environments for preparing the book.

With the exception of the introductory essay, this book contains previously published research. In an effort to include a greater variety of work and to provide thematic continuity, the material has been edited for length, with proposed cuts vetted by the authors. Titles have been slightly amended to flag the fact that the contributions here differ from the originals. Readers are asked to remember that the process of editing has inevitably entailed a loss of information. In my opinion this has been most notably the case for the contributions by Wagner-Pacifici and Schwartz, Morrill, and Sewell.