During World War II, future Prime Minister Harold Macmillan provided one of the more enduring characterizations of the Anglo-American relationship. “We are Greeks,” he opined to a colleague, “in this American empire. You will find the Americans much as the Greeks found the Romans—great, big, vulgar, bustling people, more vigorous than we are and also more idle, with more unspoiled virtues but also more corrupt.” Britain’s postwar role, in this analogy, would be to take the new Rome under its tutelage, and in the process shape the ends to which American power would be applied.
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