From Mr Tim Reilly.

Sir, I read with some sympathy Herb Morgan’s letter (September 8) criticising Martin Wolf’s article on American values. I attended a lecture on US history at Cambridge years ago when the professor said something that I still think is profound and insightful about the differences between Europe and America. He said that the inscriptions on the headstones of fallen soldiers in Europe invariably appealed to the sacrifice of the individual for Queen/King, or country, or Mother/Fatherland. It was, in other words, about dying for something physically tangible: “Died defending French soil”; “Died for the Russian Motherland”; “Known only unto God” for the Brits.