Read "The United States and the War" by Gilbert Murray online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It is hard for an Englishman to understand how a very great nation, a very proud nation, whom we, accustomed to range the whole circuit of the world and find our brothers trading or governing in the antipodes, look upon instinctively as our own kinsmen and natural friends, should be content to stay apart from the great movement of the world, and to strike no blow either for Democracy or Absolutism; to leave it to others to decide whether peace or war shall be the main regulator of national life, whether treaties shall be sacred or not, whether or not "Government of the people by the people for the people" shall perish from the greater part of the earth. And many Americans feel as we do. The most brilliant and magnetic of America's recent Presidents feels as we do. But, as a rule, I believe, the average American is not only content, but proud to stand thus aloof and indifferent.
The line of thought leading to such a pride is one familiar to many generations of Americans, the glory of their immense isolation.