ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

致谢

IT IS A PLEASURE FOR ME TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE CONTRIBUTIONS of many people to this book. My teachers at Roxbury Latin School introduced me to the fascination of history. My great debt to my many New Guinea friends will be obvious from the frequency with which I cite their experiences. I owe an equally great debt ^{(and absolution from responsibility for my errors)} to my many scientist friends and professional colleagues, who patiently explained the subtleties of their subjects and read my drafts. In particular, Peter Bellwood, Kent Flannery, Patrick Kirch, and my wife, Marie Cohen, read the whole manuscript, and Charles Heiser, Jr., David Keightley, Bruce Smith, Richard Yarnell, and Daniel Zohary each read several chapters. Earlier versions of several of the chapters appeared as articles in Discover magazine and in Natural History magazine. The National Geographic Society, World Wildlife Fund, and University of California at Los Angeles supported my fieldwork on Pacific islands. I have been fortunate to have John Brockman and Katinka Matson as my agents, Lori Iversen and Lori Rosen as my research assistants and secretaries, Ellen Modecki as my illustrator, and as my editors Donald Lamm at W. W. Norton, Neil Belton and Will Sulkin at Jonathan Cape, Willi K hler at Fischer, Marc Zabludoff and Mark Wheeler and Polly Shulman at Discover, and Ellen Goldensohn and Alan Ternes at Natural History.

我很高兴感谢许多人对这本书的贡献。我在罗克斯伯里拉丁学校的老师向我介绍了历史的魅力。我对我的许多新几内亚朋友的巨大感激，从我频繁引用他们的经历可以明显看出。我同样要感谢我的许多科学家朋友和专业同事，他们耐心地解释了他们课题的微妙之处，并阅读了我的草稿。特别是，彼得·贝尔伍德、肯特·弗兰纳里、帕特里克·柯奇和我的妻子玛丽·科恩阅读了整个手稿，小查尔斯·海泽、戴维·凯特利、布鲁斯·史密斯、理查德·亚内尔和丹尼尔·佐哈里各读了几章。其中几章的早期版本作为文章出现在《发现》杂志和《自然史》杂志上。国家地理学会、世界野生动物基金会和洛杉矶加利福尼亚大学支持了我在太平洋岛屿的实地调查。我很幸运地有约翰·布罗克曼和卡廷卡·马森作为我的经纪人，洛里·艾弗森和洛里·罗森作为我研究助理和秘书，艾伦·莫德基作为我的插图画家，我的编辑唐纳德·拉姆在W·W·诺顿，尼尔·贝尔顿和威尔·苏尔金在乔纳森·开普，威利·克勒在费舍尔，马克·扎布卢多夫和马克·惠勒以及波利·舒尔曼在探索，自然历史学院的艾伦·戈登森和艾伦·特恩斯。