This book has been a long time in the making and, along the way, we have incurred a number of debts. The greatest, by far, is to our contributors who came to Winnipeg (some, even in the winter!) to deliver insightful talks on such pressing and important topics. We hope they enjoyed the talks, the arguments, and the dinners, as much as we did. The Canadian Museum for Human Rights graciously allowed us to host the Fragile Freedoms lectures in their newly constructed building, even before the museum itself opened to the public. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), which carried all of the lectures on its Ideas program, was a fantastic supporter of our endeavors from beginning to end. We would also like to thank the Asper Foundation, and Gail Asper, in particular, for their generous financial assistance with what ultimately turned into a bigger undertaking than we had originally envisioned. Two of the chapters in this volume reproduce previously published material, and we would like to thank the following institutions for allowing us to do so: chapter 2, Steven Pinker, “A History of Violence” appeared at http:// www.edge.org Copyright @ 2011 By Edge Foundation