Cultural and political persistence

A modern report on what the English ambassador wrote about his stay in Denmark in the early 1690s.

My favorite bit:

"In Denmark there are no seditions, mutinies, or libels against the government, but all people are, or appear to be, lovers of their king, notwithstanding their ill-treatment, and the hardships they groan under. And I suppose one principal reason of this to be the equality of the taxes, and the manner of taxing. It is not to be imagined by those that see it not, what a comfort it is to the sufferers to be ill-used alike."

Denmark, like Sweden and Norway, remains remarkably homogeneous on many dimensions, including the politics. Or, at least, I perceive them as such in juxtaposition to the wildly heterogeneous US.

I can report, though, based on personal experience that the food has gotten better in the intervening centuries!

Hat tip: Lars Skipper