This issue explores the commons from a variety of perspectives. As one of the articles' authors, Jonathan Rowe, notes, “It is the vast realm that is the shared heritage of all of us that we typically use without toll or price. The atmosphere and oceans, languages and cultures, the stores of human knowledge and wisdom, the informal support systems of community, the peace and quiet that we crave, the genetic building blocks of life — these are all aspects of the commons.”