The word Duke started to appear in a tiny 8-point font on the spine of EASTS in 2011. Preparing this farewell letter, I looked at all the EASTS lined up on my bookshelf and found it quite a splendid sight to see a rank of Duke’s shining out from the bottom of every vertical spine for ten volumes—forty issues in all. Forty Dukes equates to 168 articles, 165 book reviews, and 122 pieces of forum, reports, and essays. Other than there on the spine, though, the name appears only once—on the bottom line of the inside front page, which reads “East Asian Science, Technology and Society is published by Duke University Press, 905 W. Main St., Suite 18B, Durham, NC 27701, on behalf of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan.” We have never been to Suite 18B in Durham, and none of Duke Press’s staff have ever visited EASTS’ editorial office in Taipei. Yet the sense of coworking has been so strong for the past ten years. Duke has been our spine.
