William H. McNeill is the Robert A. Millikan Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Department of History and the College at the University of Chicago. His many books include The Pursuit of Power, The Rise of the West, and Mythistory and Other Essays, all published by the University of Chicago Press. � Marilyn Robinson Waldman (1943-1996) was professor of history at Ohio State University and the author of Toward a Theory of Historical Narrative: A Case Study in Perso-Islamicate Historiography.