Journal article: I am most grateful to the editors of the British Journal of Sociology for putting together such an impressive set of review papers about my book. I am very honoured by the very thoughtful essays written by such a distinguished group of scholars coming from sociology, political science, anthropology, history, geography and economics. I warmly thank all participants for their time and attention to my work. I would like to view my book more as work of social science than one of economics or history. It seems to me that we often loose a lot of time in the social sciences because of little disputes about disciplinary boundaries. I could not dream of a better recognition for my work than the stimulating collection of interdisciplinary essays that the British Journal of Sociology is now publishing. I am very fortunate to have so many great readers. There is no way I can do justice to the richness of each review and address the many stimulating points that they raise. I would like however to take this opportunity to briefly clarify a number of issues.