America doesn't border on Muslim countries. European countries do and that seems to be a fundamental difference.

People everywhere talk about Islam and the West. Presumably that has some relationship to reality, that these are entities that have some meaning and they do. Of course the core ofthat reality is differences in religion.

As far as ideology or political beliefs are concerned, countries are very different.

The basis of association and antagonism among countries has changed over time.

Except under rare circumstances, I don't write responses to criticism.

Also, of course, for most of this time most Americans thought of America as a white country with, at best, only a very segregated and subordinate role for blacks.

In 1920, the West ruled huge amounts of the world.