Dr. Robert Whaples is Professor of Economics at Wake Forest University. He earned a double B.A. in Economics and History from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Whaples is the director of EH.Net (http://www.eh.net), which operates the Economic History Services website to provide resources and promote communication among scholars in economic history and related fields and to make research in economic history accessible to the worldwide public. He edits EH.Net's book review series and is the editor of the Encyclopedia of Economic and Business History. His Ph.D. dissertation, ìThe Shortening of the American Work Week: An Economic and Historical Analysis of Its Context, Causes and Consequences,î was awarded the Allen Nevins Prize for the Outstanding Dissertation in American Economic History by the Economic History Association. In 1999 he won the Economic History Association's Jonathan Hughes Prize for Excellence in Teaching Economic History.