The Gilded Age was far more turbulent and desperate than people here are giving it credit for, which is nothing unusual. It's probably the period that is most similar to the present day, with its entrenched partisanship, electoral shenanigans, racial violence, labor disputes, growing economic inequality, and the rise of populism and radical politics. As for the least interesting, I would say probably the decade or so after the collapse of the Soviet Union from an American perspective —maybe the late fourth/fifth century globally.
Yeah, I can see that. Not a lot of conquerors in that period. Justinian was still a century away. Tang China hadn’t yet risen.
