Thanks for the nomination. It's funny that I usually get a favorable response from the work on the 19th century West from a comparative historical bent (e.g., this entry and the German history series) - that is considering the political struggles in the U.S. route to modern capitalist democracy. But when I pay attention to the same complexities in societies that faced greater challenges - societies having to dismount a well-established agrarian society of the feudal, oligarchic, or bureaucratic forms - I get the oddest reactions. Just today, I hear a glib "show me a peasant who isn't impoverished" when briefly mentioning political unrest in Central America. Maybe I should just stick with the pre-WWI era. 172 19:06, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)
