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> You're skipping about 1000 years of history there to make your point. This varied by area. Some nation states developed early (England, France, Spain, Portug

• vidarh 13y ago
  Not really For the most part these countries were monarchies whose territories waxed and waned with the power of their ruling houses, where the idea of a nation with a specific government did not develop much earlier than elsewhere. Their development into nation states in fact largely happened as they contracted into core territories with common cultures and languages and the power of their monarchs was put under increasing challenge. As for Germany and Italy, while they did not become nation states until late in the game, a large part of that was that they were part of empires and other kingdoms long before. The Holy Roman Empire (not to be confused with the Roman Empire), the West Roman Empire, the Ostrogothic Kingdom ("heir" to the West Roman Empire, including Italy), the Frankish (Carolingian) Empire, the Bysantine Empire (East Roman Empire); Habsburg Spain; Habsburg Austria; the original Roman Empire. The period of scattered small autonomous city states was a historical "blip" of not much more than two hundred years due to a temporary political and military vacuum caused by the constant tug of war of various of these larger empires. The core areas of Germany and Italy had been dominated by organized larger scale governments for the most part of the preceding two millenias (depending on region) before nationalism existed.