My books always begin with me far away and a friend from the past making contact. In this case it was Rob Cowley emailing me in Buenos Aires with the news that he was organizing a series on important battles for Random House, and asking me if I was interested in submitting a proposal on Cannae. Soon enough I was buried in the Second Punic War and wondering if the original email had been such a good thing. But now that it’s over there is no question it was. So thanks, Rob.
Thanks also for giving me the opportunity to get to know Jonathan Jao, my editor. Good advice given well is a rare commodity, but it’s vital in publishing, especially now. So thanks for your steady hand with my “ghosts.”
Thanks to my colleagues at the Naval Postgraduate School: Michael Freeman, who read the emerging manuscript chapter by chapter and didn’t seem to fall asleep; John Arquilla, who first pointed me to the fate of Cannae’s survivors; and also Hy Rothstein who helped me learn to pronounce Cannae.
Since I belong to a family of writers, all outpourings get filtered through the gene pool. Thanks especially to wife, Benjie, son-in-law Nick Taylor, and brother-in-law Jack MacKinnon for careful reads and excellent suggestions.
Finally, thanks to my agent Carl Brandt, who has kept my erratic writing path more or less on track for upwards of two decades.