Oh we definitely inherited isolationist sentiment from them. That's a major reason - not to mention having to suck up to German and Irish Americans - why we entered both World Wars later than we arguably should have. The difference between us and the UK is that the UK had a channel to separate themselves from mainland Europe. We had an o…
Oh we definitely inherited isolationist sentiment from them. That's a major reason - not to mention having to suck up to German and Irish Americans - why we entered both World Wars later than we arguably should have. The difference between us and the UK is that the UK had a channel to separate themselves from mainland Europe. We had an ocean. Thus British involvement in mainland European affairs was more imminent than American. Not to mention "manifest destiny" was basically our way of justification of territorial expansion. Just as they believed they were the rightful rulers of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and much of Africa, we believed we were the rightly rulers of what is now the continental USA, and there were some who wanted us to conquer all the British and Spanish ruled territories of the Americas.
You've just contradicted yourself. Supporting expansionism and conducting it on a huge scale is not isolationist. If we go back to Washington, what the U.S. was wary of was "entangling alliances" - not attacking countries and peoples on our own. That's not isolationism; it's unilateralism.
The British and American governments of the 19th century would have disagreed with that statement. Until the Entente Cordiale of 1904, the UK was considered to have practiced "splendid isolationism." And by American standards, not interfering with countries in the Americas but not Europe was "isolationism."
Right, which was imperialist expansionism. Isolationism is what was practiced by Japan for centuries, when they didn't invade any countries and kept foreigners out except under heavy restrictions in Nagasaki. Had the British done that, there would have been no British Empire throughout the world, and what's now the U.S. would have had a very different history.
Oh we definitely inherited isolationist sentiment from them. That's a major reason - not to mention having to suck up to German and Irish Americans - why we entered both World Wars later than we arguably should have. The difference between us and the UK is that the UK had a channel to separate themselves from mainland Europe. We had an ocean. Thus British involvement in mainland European affairs was more imminent than American. Not to mention "manifest destiny" was basically our way of justification of territorial expansion. Just as they believed they were the rightful rulers of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and much of Africa, we believed we were the rightly rulers of what is now the continental USA, and there were some who wanted us to conquer all the British and Spanish ruled territories of the Americas.
You've just contradicted yourself. Supporting expansionism and conducting it on a huge scale is not isolationist. If we go back to Washington, what the U.S. was wary of was "entangling alliances" - not attacking countries and peoples on our own. That's not isolationism; it's unilateralism.
The British and American governments of the 19th century would have disagreed with that statement. Until the Entente Cordiale of 1904, the UK was considered to have practiced "splendid isolationism." And by American standards, not interfering with countries in the Americas but not Europe was "isolationism."
OK, they could misdefine "isolationism" as encompassing huge-scale aggression and imperialism, but why should we?
Because we did the same thing. We just had a different name for it: Manifest Destiny.
Right, which was imperialist expansionism. Isolationism is what was practiced by Japan for centuries, when they didn't invade any countries and kept foreigners out except under heavy restrictions in Nagasaki. Had the British done that, there would have been no British Empire throughout the world, and what's now the U.S. would have had a very different history.