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Jeffrey Ravel studies the history of French and European political culture from the mid 17th through the mid 19th centuries. He is the author of The Would Be Commoner: A Tale of Deception, Murder, and Justice in Seventeenth Century France in 2008, and The Contested Parterre: Public Theater and French Political Culture, 1680-1791 in 1999. He was Editor for volumes 35 and 36 of Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture, an annual publication of the American Society for 18th Century Studies.

Jeremy Black studied at Queens' College Cambridge, St John's College Oxford, and Merton College Oxford before joining the University of Durham as a lecturer in 1980. There he gained his PhD and ultimately his professorship in 1994. He joined Exeter University as Established Chair in History in 1996.

Heather Tausig is the Director of Conservation for the New England Aquarium. In this role she oversees all programs and staff within the department, coordinates conservation messages in Aquarium exhibits, and serves as a liaison with federal, state, and local governmental and non-governmental agencies concerning ocean conservation issues. The primary program areas she oversees include the Sustainable Fisheries Initiative, World of Water Films, and Marine Conservation Action Fund. Heather is also a senior producer of the Aquarium's World of Water (WOW) conservation films, which are distributed to more than 400 aquariums, zoos and science centers in the United States and abroad, with an audience of approximately 15 million people annually. Heather also oversees the coordination of grant requests and serves on the board for the Marine Conservation Action Fund a unique re-granting program that aims to protect and promote ocean biodiversity by supporting small-scale, time-sensitive, community-based projects around the world. In addition, Heather serves on the Advisory Board of University of New Hampshire's Large Pelagics Research Center, the Advisory Board for EcoFish, the Board of Directors for the Women's Fisheries Network, New England Chapter, and the Board of Managers of the Maria Mitchell Association, a science and history-based education, conservation, astronomy and natural science research institution. Heather received her master's degree in International Relations and Energy and Environmental Studies from Boston University.

Dr. Caroly A. Shumway serves as Principal Investigator in Aquatic Biodiversity, Departments of Conservation and Research. Dr. Shumway is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Biology at Boston University. Her program in Aquatic Biodiversity includes the creation of Living Links: Choices for Survival; development of Scientists Without Borders, a program to link young scientists with communities in need of biodiversity research; Changing Hearts and Minds, a values-based approach to environmental stewardship in the South Pacific; and assistance with freshwater biodiversity conservation and livelihood security in the Congo on a USAID-funded project. She also writes and conducts research on conservation policy, the use of behavior in conservation, and the evolution of brain and behavior. Dr. Shumway has eleven years of experience in international conservation ranging from governmental policy (USAID) to grassroots work (The Nature Conservancy).

George Price is a cultural anthropologist with the National Park Service.

Author and journalist Jonathan Lyons has spent his professional and personal life exploring the shifting boundaries between East and West. After more than 20 years as an editor and foreign correspondent for *Reuters*, he is now a researcher at the Global Terrorism Research Centre and a PhD candidate in sociology of religion at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He has a BA with Honors in Russian and History from Wesleyan University and was a Fellow at Columbia University's Harriman Institute of Soviet Studies. He also studied at the Pushkin Institute of Russian language in Moscow. *The House of Wisdom*, published by Bloomsbury in February 2009, is a riveting history which reveals the science, magic, religion and knowledge of Arab culture. In this fascinating and thoughtful book Jonathan Lyons restores credit to the Arab thinkers of the past, explores and reveals the extent of their learning and describes the intrepid adventures of those who went in search of it and who, in doing so, laid the foundations of what we now call the Renaissance.