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 is professor of history at Ohio State University and director of the Center for Comparative Studies in the Humanities. She is the author of Toward a Theory of Historical Narrative: A Case Study in Perso-Islamicate Historiography.