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0 pointsJumpCrisscross9mo ago0 comments

> concept of nations is perhaps two centuries old at best

Concept of nation states. Nations and states, separately, are an older concept.

> they were often simply under the dominion of one imperial power or another

For millennia. Often because inter-ethnic conflicts required an external security guarantor to keep a lid on the chaos.

One could argue this history of chaos goes back to the Hittites and Bronze Age collapse.

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During the times there was an external security guarantor, conflict would by definition go down (assuming the external power was sufficiently potent and stable). So you can't say that both chaos and dominion were happening simultaneously at all times.

> One could argue this history of chaos goes back to the Hittites and Bronze Age collapse.

And one could claim that the history of chaos in Central Europe goes back to the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire, or the Ostsiedlung, or perhaps even before the Romans made contact with the Germani.

JumpCrisscrossOP9mo ago

> you can't say that both chaos and dominion were happening simultaneously at all times

Nobody said this.

> one could claim that the history of chaos in Central Europe goes back to the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire, or the Ostsiedlung, or perhaps even before the Romans made contact with the Germani

Well, yes. It’s a nexus of navigable waterways. It has taken millennia of negotiating, atrocity and—ultimately—an external security guarantor twinned with mutual forgiveness to attain, for a short period, peace.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse