Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. Julius Caesar

All colors and blends of Americans have somewhat the same tendencies. It's a breed — selected out by accident. And so we're overbrave and overfearful — we're kind and cruel as children. We're overfriendly and at the same time frightened of strangers. We boast and are impressed. We're oversentimental and realistic. We are mundane and materialistic — and do you know of any other nation that acts for ideals? We eat too much. We have no taste, no sense of proportion. We throw our energy about like waste. In the old lands they say of us that we go from barbarism to decadence without an intervening culture. East Of Eden

The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise. Don Quixote

 I am unaware of anyone ... seriously suggesting ... biological features of the region's peoples that might have contributed.  Guns, Germs And Steel