Seven years ago today, 28 May 2005, is the day that this blog was, in an important sense, born. The previous day the day Dan officially posted the announcement that The Duck of Minerva was henceforth a collective enterprise (he said “collaborative endeavor,” but whatever), and on the 28th, Bill Petti and I started weighing in with posts of our own: Bill on nuclear (non-)proliferation, and me — in what should have been an early signal that I wasn’t exactly going to be doing mainstream IR as my regular schtick here — on “momentum” and why it’s a poor metaphor for events in social life, even the trajectories of baseball teams through the regular season. True, Dan actually started blogging here on 17 May 2005. But the strange animal that is The Duck of Minerva really got going once he decided to invite others, and the conversations we were having among ourselves in person or via private e-mail chains started to take public form online.

So: Dan gets a gold (or maybe gold-pressed latinum) star for his foresight in getting this thing started, and my gratitude for inviting me on board right at the beginning. Happy quacking anniversary, everyone.