Page 123 meme

I saw this over at Kitten Knits Yarn and thought it sounded like fun.

1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Open to page 123, look down to the 5th sentence.
3. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog.
4. Include the title and the author's name.
5. Tag 3 People.

When i first read it this morning I couldn't post, partly because I was running late and (as it turned out) my bagels were burning in my brand new toaster oven because I *totally* misinterpreted the little toast icon by the timer. (Second bagel turned out perfect. Thanks Mom and Dad!). Plus, there are 10 books on my desk right now and I couldn't figure out which one was closest. But when I went back to it one of the books had moved a little closer.

"Later even Portugal and San Marino entered the war; by 1917, with exception of the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Spain, all the European Nations were engaged on one side or the other. With the entry of the United States in April 1917, the war finally took on a global character. Then a number of Latin American states, among them Brazil, declared war on Germany, and others, such as Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador, severed relations with Germany."

Gilbert and Large, Eds., The End of the European Era: 1890 to the Present, 5th ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2002), 123.

(I hope the folks over at the Red Marker Project like my use of Chicago style here)

In case you were wondering, the other books on my desk are:
Francois Furet, Revolutionary France 1770-1880
Hannah Arendt, On Revolution
Francois Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution
Jonathan Sperber, Revolutionary Europe 1780-1850
Benjamin Constant, Political Writings
Abbé Sieyès, Political Writings: Including the Debate between Sieyès and Tom Paine in 1791
Reinhard Rürup, ed., The Problem of Revolution in Germany
Langenscheidt German-English English-German Dictionary
Langenscheidt Grossworterbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache

Plus, thanks to the way I've got my office set up, I could reach at least 100 books without moving from my chair. Pretty sweet, huh?

I'm gonna tag... umm...
1) All the grad students reading this.
2) Anybody else who wants to do it. Try it, it's fun!
3) Everybody who doesn't want to do it. (kidding.)