ABSTRACT
Men and ideas passed back and forth across the Atlantic with notable facility as reformers of many persuasions drew inspiration from one another. It also took place in the presence of a great economic boom after 1815, which persisted for many decades, despite periodic depressions. All relationships, institutions, and mental attitudes were reshaped as the rigid economic world inherited from the eighteenth century melted into the “fluid economics”—to use Vernon Parrington’s term—of these years. The Corn Law struggle suggests one of the major contrasts within the Anglo-American community. At the heart of much of Anglo-American politics lay an argument over what image of the nation men should carry in their minds. Should they see it as pluralistic, should they take pleasure in its diversity, its many accents and hues and life styles, and accord equal dignity to all? The minority groups argued for this image. In contrast again to the continent patterns, the Anglo-American community was characterized by remarkable religiosity.
