An interesting article. Without wishing to offend our forum friends on the other side of the water, when I was up at Balliol about 44 years ago, I very much noticed how inferior in good manners the British were to well-brought up Americans. Several other of the Americans at Balliol concurred with that observation. It's rather amusing in light of the fact that a very large percentage of the American populace regards the British as the very epitome of good manners...and good dress for that matter. Quite often I am asked, merely because I am well dressed, if I am English, even when my attire is so distinctively American (e.g., my green blazer) that I might as well be wearing an Uncle Sam costume!

No country has a monopoly on barbarity, to be sure, but in my experience the people with the greatest odds in any random interaction of being sincerely civil are the inland Chinese. Coastal and island peoples everywhere tend to be less friendly as a rule, especially beyond surface pleasantries.