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150 years ? Seriously ? A strong democratic state maybe but since the peace of Westphalia in 15xx you had strong states with centralized authorities with the mo

by _jahh 10y ago

150 years ? Seriously ? A strong democratic state maybe but since the peace of Westphalia in 15xx you had strong states with centralized authorities with the monopoly of power, infrastructure and world view.

nostrademons 10y ago
The seeds of the idea of nationalism date to the Peace of Westphalia, but few of us would actually think of the Westphalian "states" as nations in the modern sense. I'd date the modern nation-state to: The American Civil War. (1865). There's a reason why this is called "The War Between the States" in the South - before the Civil War, it wasn't clear whether the U.S. was a loose confederation that any state could secede from at will, or a unified political body that would fight to maintain its integrity. The unification of Germany (1871). This is geographically the same area as the Westphalian states, but people think of "Germany" as the nation, not Munster/Brandenburg/Westphalia/Saxony/etc. The unification of Italy (1871). Again, we don't think of the Papal States as a nation, we think of Italy as one. The Meiji restoration in Japan (1868), where decentralized power under the shogunate was centralized under the emperor. Russification under Alexander II of Russia (1859-1882), which included both the emancipation of the serfs and a systematic campaign to promote the Russian language & culture within territories governed by the Russian empire.
- sobani 10y ago
  Could you explain to me what would make Britain or France not a state far before that time?
  - vidarh 10y ago
    nation state. The issue is that territories often shifted hands, and what territories happened to be ruled by the same people often boiled down to which monarch happened to inherit or conquer which areas. There simply was no clear unified concept of a nation of people. The rise of the national states came in part as a result of Romantic Nationalism (or Nationalromanticism) [1], and the wave of revolutions that swept Europe in particular as a reaction against the above: For the first time there was the rise of the sentiment that certain areas belonged to certain states because their people belonged together due to common language or culture, rather than because the territories were owned by a specific monarch, or because of a given convenient political association. This coincided by wholesale creation of cultural mythos. E.g. Norway had not existed as an independent kingdom since 1380, and had only existed as a unified kingdom for a few hundred years at that time. But with the rise of Romantic Nationalism, authors and artists and politicians contributed to creating a mythos of a Viking era Norway and Norwegian people that had a common destiny. Norway was nothing special in that respect - it is one example of dozens in Europe alone where nations were spun out of mythology or ideas about a shared history or destiny that largely boiled down to finding convenient political or language boundary and creating a mythos that fit them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_nationalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_nationalism
jcranmer 10y ago
Peace of Westphalia is 1648, not 15xx. And the Peace of Westphalia wasn't exactly a centralizing influence--in confirming that the Holy Roman Emperor could not interfere in the matters of its constituent states, it repudiated the attempt of the HRE to centralize. Strictly speaking, the Roman Empire was a surprisingly centralized state for its size--the provincial governors spent a lot of time asking the Emperor for guidance. (That was a large part of the reason why it fell--it was just too big to be centrally governed, and the administration couldn't really effect the necessary decentralization). Decentralization was the norm from post-classical times up until the development of gunpowder, which allowed central governments to start to exercise a monopoly of force over their subordinates.

by _jahh 10y ago

nostrademons 10y ago

The seeds of the idea of nationalism date to the Peace of Westphalia, but few of us would actually think of the Westphalian "states" as nations in the modern sense. I'd date the modern nation-state to: The American Civil War. (1865). There's a reason why this is called "The War Between the States" in the South - before the Civil War, it wasn't clear whether the U.S. was a loose confederation that any state could secede from at will, or a unified political body that would fight to maintain its integrity. The unification of Germany (1871). This is geographically the same area as the Westphalian states, but people think of "Germany" as the nation, not Munster/Brandenburg/Westphalia/Saxony/etc. The unification of Italy (1871). Again, we don't think of the Papal States as a nation, we think of Italy as one. The Meiji restoration in Japan (1868), where decentralized power under the shogunate was centralized under the emperor. Russification under Alexander II of Russia (1859-1882), which included both the emancipation of the serfs and a systematic campaign to promote the Russian language & culture within territories governed by the Russian empire.

sobani 10y ago
Could you explain to me what would make Britain or France not a state far before that time?
- vidarh 10y ago
  nation state. The issue is that territories often shifted hands, and what territories happened to be ruled by the same people often boiled down to which monarch happened to inherit or conquer which areas. There simply was no clear unified concept of a nation of people. The rise of the national states came in part as a result of Romantic Nationalism (or Nationalromanticism) [1], and the wave of revolutions that swept Europe in particular as a reaction against the above: For the first time there was the rise of the sentiment that certain areas belonged to certain states because their people belonged together due to common language or culture, rather than because the territories were owned by a specific monarch, or because of a given convenient political association. This coincided by wholesale creation of cultural mythos. E.g. Norway had not existed as an independent kingdom since 1380, and had only existed as a unified kingdom for a few hundred years at that time. But with the rise of Romantic Nationalism, authors and artists and politicians contributed to creating a mythos of a Viking era Norway and Norwegian people that had a common destiny. Norway was nothing special in that respect - it is one example of dozens in Europe alone where nations were spun out of mythology or ideas about a shared history or destiny that largely boiled down to finding convenient political or language boundary and creating a mythos that fit them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_nationalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_nationalism

jcranmer 10y ago

Peace of Westphalia is 1648, not 15xx. And the Peace of Westphalia wasn't exactly a centralizing influence--in confirming that the Holy Roman Emperor could not interfere in the matters of its constituent states, it repudiated the attempt of the HRE to centralize. Strictly speaking, the Roman Empire was a surprisingly centralized state for its size--the provincial governors spent a lot of time asking the Emperor for guidance. (That was a large part of the reason why it fell--it was just too big to be centrally governed, and the administration couldn't really effect the necessary decentralization). Decentralization was the norm from post-classical times up until the development of gunpowder, which allowed central governments to start to exercise a monopoly of force over their subordinates.