"The American Commonwealth appeared in 1888. It met with immediate and enthusiastic acclaim in two hemispheres, and during the half-century that followed, remained the classic work in the field... No other foreigner, indeed no American writer on American democracy, enjoyed so great a prestige, or wielded so great an influence in the United States as did Lord Bryce. Our language and history were also his, and he brought to his task a thorough knowledge of the English background in which, despite the "Frontier Theory," so many of the ideals and institutions of America are rooted."