The one man who has done more than any other to re-establish John Rae's reputation as a political economist of the first rank is R. Warren James. The year 1996 marked the bi-centenary of Rae's birth and coincided with the 500th anniversary celebration of the founding of Aberdeen University, Rae's alma mater. When Omar Hamouda and I discovered that we were independently trying to organize Rae bicentenary conferences in Canada and in Scotland, we felt it made sense to pool our energies and hold a conference in Aberdeen in 1996. In the event, more than thirty Rae scholars attended from around the world and the conference proceedings were published as The Economics of John Rae (1998). Unfortunately, James was unable to attend, but it was the unanimous decision of all assembled that the conference volume be dedicated to him.