When Martin Heidegger passed away on May 26, 1976, both interest in and appreciation of his thought had spread to all corners of the globe. Implicit in this development was the simple fact that many of those who were devoted to studying his thought and writings were not native German speakers, and indeed, may have been fluent only in the language of their own nationality and upbringing. Within the English-speaking world, this "language gap" was probably most glaring in the United States, where the "melting pot" of diverse cultures had often occurred at the expense of cultivating fluency in other languages. Given this unique twist on the "Zeitgeist," a growing audience of students and scholars alike not only depended upon existing translations, but, also discovered in each "new" translation of Heidegger's writings the opportunity to gain greater access to his thinking and thereby achieve deeper insight into his philosophy.