The French and Spanish threatened North America with their imperial ambitions. To be sure, America was vulnerable in those early years. As the Brits found out, an island cannot rule a continent. That trio of neighbors has given the United States an unprecedented degree of security, a huge margin for error in international affairs, and the luxury of largely unfettered development.ДЇrom the earliest days of the countryвЂ™s founding, geography has been much more an ally than adversary. The two oceans to either side of the country are what historian Thomas Bailey brilliantly described as its liquid assets.Д¬anadians, Mexicans, and fish. The United States is the only great power in the history of the world that has had the luxury of having nonpredatory neighbors to its north and south, and fish to its east and west. ItвЂ™s kind of like in the real estate business: ItвЂ™s all about location, location, location. Still, if I had to identify that one thing that - more than any other - helps explain the way Americans see the world, it would be AmericaвЂ™s physical location.

Fortune, along with the random circumstances it brings, pushes them in different directions. But what accounts for their fundamentally different histories? Other factors are clearly at play, including culture, religion, and what nature bestows or denies in resources. That might explain their reliance on naval power and even their imperial aspirations. Britain and Japan are both island nations. In the affairs of nations, geography - what it wills, demands, and bestows - is destiny too. Sigmund Freud argued that in the human enterprise, anatomy is destiny.

Do Americans have a worldview? And is there a central organizing principle that explains it? To frame the question in Tolkienesque terms: Might there be one explanation that rules them all?

Emergence geo 5 quiz