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The venue: the International Institute of Social History, in Amsterdam. The keynote speaker at the “Crisis and Mobilization Since 1789” conference was University of Michigan historian Geoff Eley, and he set a great tone for the conference. In his talk, he outlined the central argument of his 2002 book Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe: 1850-2000, framing his discussion around the question, “What produces democracy?” His answer, writ short, was “conflict.” Between 1850 and 1968, he argued, it was the conflict between capitalism and socialism that produced the most dramatic democratic advances in Europe, especially in the period between 1945 and 1968. Eley made it clear that revolutions are inextricably linked to the rise and advancement of democracies. As he put it in the introduction of Forging Democracy , “ [D]emocracy is not ‘given’ or ‘granted.’ It requires conflict , namely, courageous challenges to authority, risk-taking and reckless exemplary acts, ethical wit