Many people have assisted in the preparation of this book.

First, we wish to thank all those people involved in the conference, entitled the Trans-National History Symposium, which formed the basis of the present volume. While discussion of transnational history has been going on for some time in the United States, this was the first time transnational history had been discussed explicitly and in detail at a conference of historians in Australia. The Symposium, featuring some twenty participants, was held on 10 and 11 October 2004 at the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University and attracted a lively audience from around Australia and overseas.

For their funding and administrative support we especially wish to thank the HRC, its Director Ian Donaldson and conference administrator, Leena Messina; the ANU National Institute for the Humanities and Creative Arts, its convener Adam Shoemaker and administrator, Suzanne Knight, and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at La Trobe University. We also wish to thank those colleagues who presented stimulating papers which do not appear in this collection: Joanna Bourke, Laurence Brown, Georgine Clarsens, Liz Conor, Joy Damousi, Cassandra Pybus, Amanda Rasmussen and Pierre-Yves Saunier. We thank our contributors for their responsiveness to editorial suggestions and deadlines and in particular Desley Deacon and John Fitzgerald for reading and providing useful feedback on the introduction.

Finally, we thank ANU E Press for its encouragement and support.

Ann Curthoys and Marilyn Lake