ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters on this book. The book states that one major reason for studying the politics of aristocratic empires is that significant remnants of traditionalism are left in modern societies that can be understood only if one knows their origins. It indicates that there is a tendency for aristocracies and their institutions and ideologies to be wiped out in revolutionary processes that respond to modernization from without, though obviously even there important remnants persist. The book suggests aristocracies remained powerful well into the twentieth century in Britain and France and especially in Germany. The view of the city, in contrast to the country, as corrupt and corrupting, is still held in modern societies and it, too, may be related to the aristocratic contempt for commerce and grew with it in response to commercialization.
