The essays collected in this liber amicorum or Festschrift were written in order to pay respect to Gerrit Meijer, a genuine scholar who will retire as reader from Maastricht University on October 17, 2003. His career has involved extensive teaching at all levels, characterized by great erudition, diligence, empathy, and willingness to speak his mind. This stubbornness not to go with intellectual fashions is an extremely important asset in the social sciences. It was his lonely voice in a hostile...