[Lathriel]

The way Pippin was treated by the Gondorians at the gate always made me wonder at how isolated they were. Throughout the chapter there is a sense of isolation. This isolation came about because of their nearness to Mordor and the spread of evil. Thus the white city knows very little of what is out there. And most of the strange things they hear about they immediatly dismiss as legends or myths. This seems rather ironic to me since their ancestors, the numenoreans, certainly had much more knowledge of the world they lived in then the Gondorians do now.
But throughout LOTR I always had this feeling that nobody except for the elves and Dunadain actually knew who else lived in their world. The hobbits like to stay in the shire, and the people of Bree stay close to Bree. The dwarves stay close to the lonely mountain and the people of Rohan also stay within their borders.
This is probably because of the increasing dangers on the open road but in general nobody seems to care much about what is going on outside of their borders. Untill of course it becomes apparent that Sauron's forces can't be held back by Gondor alone.