At the time of his death in 1993, George Rude was Emeritus Professor of History at Concordia University, Montreal where he had worked since 1970. Previously he had taught at various schools in England and had been Professor of History at the University of Adelaide and at Flinders University. His publications include The Crowd in the French Revolution (1959), Hanoverian London 1714-1808 (1972), Europe in the Eighteenth Century (1972), Debate on Europe 1815-1850 (1972), Ideology and Popular Protest (1980), The French Revolution (1994), and The Crowd in History (1995).

Harvey J. Kaye is Ben and Joyce Rosenberg Professor of Social Change and Development, Director of the Center for History and Social Change at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, and executor of the George RudÚ Literary Estate. His previous books include Why Do Ruling Classes Fear History? and Other Questions (1996), The Powers of the Past (1992) and The British Marxist Historians (1995).