The social arrangements of the Old South were also associated with the prevalent code of ‘honour' (Wyatt-Brown 1984), and questions of honour were commonly settled by the duel. Many European travellers, from Harriet Martineau to the great geologist Sir Charles Lyell, were astonished by its prevalence: it was remarked that in New Orleans alone, someone died in a duel on average every day. The code of ‘honour', in its various forms in Europe and America, has been widely discussed. Roger Lane contrasts the Southern ‘man of honour' with the New England ‘man of dignity', who would very likely take a quarrel to court rather than ?ght a duel. The propensity to litigation through the legal apparatus of the state is a function not only ! not mainly, indeed ! of culturally conditioned individual dispositions, but also of the degree of internal paci?cation and the effectiveness of the state monopoly of the legitimate use of violence in a given territory. Yet the difference between the codes of ‘honour' and ‘dignity' is associated with different personal and emotional styles: the Southerner, like the Satisfaktionsfähig gentleman of the Kaiserreich, displayed a ‘hard', unemotional style; it has been suggested that a legacy of this can be seen in the hard, speak-your-weight-machine delivery of many American military spokesmen today.Other competing elites deserve to be mentioned - the relatively autono-mous social elites of many American cities in the past, the plutocracy that arose after the Civil War and today exercises overwhelming economic and political power. Perhaps we should also mention the signi?cance of Holly-wood and the heroes and heroines of popular culture. But I want simply to return to the point that in our perceptions of America past and present, the New England model plays too large a part, and its rival from the South far too little - something that is of great importance given the massive shift in the power ratio in favour of the South since about 1970.

And there remains one great irony about American manners and habitus. If the usa has not, to the same extent as many countries of Western Europe, witnessed the formation of a monopolistic model-setting upper class, it can also be said that today America and Americans serve as just such an upper class for the rest of the world, including Europe. It was not always so. As Allan Nevins pointed out, until around 1825 British visitors to the usa were mainly working and middle-class people, especially businessmen, who tended to speak with respect of the manners of the social equals they met. After 1825, however, more upper class and professional visitors arrived from Britain, and there is in general a more marked note of condescension in their reports about what they saw and the people they met. Subsequently, this trick of perspective was further complicated by the changing balance of power between Britain and America. By the inter-war years of the twentieth century:

For the ?rst time, the great majority of British visitors showed themselves distinctly respectful of the rich, powerful, and exceedingly complex nation beyond the seas. During the period we have described as one of Tory conde-scension [1825-45], the travellers have tended to look down on the Americans; during the later period we have described as one of analysis [1870-1922], they tended to look at the United States with level gaze; but now they frequently tended to look up at America! (Nevins 1948: 403)

Today, some Americans think of the widespread appeal of American popu-lar culture, and the constant emulation of American styles - from clothes to food to speech - as a form of ‘soft power' wielded in the American interest. It may be as well to remember, though, that the ancien régime bourgeoisie desperately aped the courtiers - but that did not prevent them resenting the aristocracy. Nor did it prevent the French Revolution.