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 environment that held up the recognition of European traditions in economic thought which others were willing to either forget or set aside or else never learn. In this sense, the current intellectual landscape in the Netherlands, but not only there, is different from what it would have been had Gerrit Meijer not exerted his influence. Hence, it is no surprise that such a large group of scholars, all somehow related to Gerrit's efforts, have contributed to this volume.