Acknowledgements Again

I am a sucker for a good Acknowledgment. Consider this, from the preface to Thomas J. Barfield's magnum opus on the nomads of Central Asia. And do not miss the boffo closer:

I … feel a strong sense of gratitude to those scholars whom I know only through their writings, and upon whose critical foundations this work depends. … One shares in the excitement of fresh discovery and passionate debate coming thorough the sometimes yellowing pages of columns relegated to the quiet recesses of great research libraries. These scholars, whose works have too often lain fallow for long periods (if library circulation cards are a reliable indicator), have been my colleagues in an extremely long-running international seminar. Like many of them, my interest in the topic has been more personal than practical. No grants were requested or received to support the research or writing.

Thomas J. Barfield, The Perilous Frontier:
Nomadic Empires and China, 221 BC to AD 1757
(Blackwell paperback ed. 1992)