As Laura Schmidt wrote, Sidsel Eriksen's comparison of Swedish and Danish temperance is very strong and evocative work -- in her telling, it is the Swedes' orientation to Anglo-American traditions of protestantism and the Danes' to German that makes the difference in the success of temperance in the two societies. She has also done work on the intertwining of temperance with Danish migration to the U.S. Her address is Westend 6.st.th., DK-1661 Kobenhavn V, Denmark, fax +45 32 964406. The reference for the Harry Levine paper referenced by Laura is: Temperance cultures: concern about alcohol problems in Nordic and English-speaking cultures, pp. 15-36 in M. Lader et al., eds., The Nature of Alcohol and Drug Related Problems, Oxford University Press, 1992. Other places where American influence is discussed: Ann Pinson, Temperance, prohibition and politics in nineteenth-century Iceland, Contemporary Drug Problems 12:249-266, 1985. Ian Tyrrell, Women's World, Women's Empire: The WCTU in International perspective, 1880-1930, Chapel Hill: U. North Carolina Press. Ian Tyrrell, Prohibition, American cultural expansion, and the new hegemony in the 1920s: an interpretation, Histoire Sociale/Social History 27:413-445, 1994. The U.S. was very important as a source of influence in the inebriates home/asylum movements of the late 19th century, although for the Netherlands there was also influence just before WWI from the Trinkfuersorgestelle movement from Germany. See James Baumohl & Robin Room, Inebriety, doctors, and the state: alcoholism treatment institutions before 1940, pp. 135-174 in Marc Galanter, ed., Recent Developments in Alcoholism, vol. 5. New York: Plenum, 1987. In turn, I would be interested in knowing what is available in English on Dutch temperance history more detailed or later than Jan de Lint, "Anti-drink propaganda and alcohol control measures: a report on the Dutch experience", pp. 87- 102 in Eric Single et al., eds., Alcohol, Society, and the State: 2. The Social History of Control Policy in Seven Countries, Toronto: Addiction Research Foundation, 1981. From data up to 1980, the Netherlands seems to come closest to being a case example of a culture shifting from a "dry" or "temperance" culture to a "wet" culture, with harm from drinking rising less fast than consumption levels -- see Robin Room, The impossible dream? Routes to reducing alcohol problems in a temperance culture, Journal of Substance Abuse 4:91-106, 1992. At a broader level, the puzzle for an outsider is how a society with a strong Calvinist tradition and a very strong popular temperance tradition could become the tolerant Netherlands of today, particularly regarding drugs -- the homeland of pragmatic harm reduction policies. On the issue of U.S. influence, my impression is that in the international drug policy arena the Netherlands rather enjoys tweaking the nose of the American hegemony, and is more noted for this than any other country. How did the Netherlands get from there to here?