When did the nation-state come about?

[Blanquist]

Was it as early as thousands of years ago or as recent as the French Revolution?

[Psy]

Was it as early as thousands of years ago or as recent as the French Revolution?
Nation states came out from the renaissance when the tiny fiefdoms hindered capital expansion thus the fiefdoms started to merge into bourgeoisie states as the power of the aristocracy weakened.

[Eagle_Syr]

Nation-states originated after the discovery of agriculture. The rise of civilization gave way to government. While there was culture before civilization, after civilization (and government) this culture, language, religion, et cetera, became institutionalized. Hence, the nation-state.

[Blake's Baby]

Was it as early as thousands of years ago or as recent as the French Revolution?

Closer to the second.

In Europe at least the process arguably started in the 14th century. I like to draw on the example of the Hundred Years War (I really do, this must be at least the third time I've brought it up in a RevLeft thread about state formation and early capitalism), which began as a dynastic dispute between the Plantagenets and the Capetins, and ended as a national war between England and France. It's arguable that England and France were created by the war.

Sure, they were feudal territories, but so were Burgundy, Navarre, and a whole load of other places that don't exist as nations. England and France were sufficiently coherent bodies to survive the process and for modern nations to coalesce round them. This process is linked to the rise of capitalism. The Hundred years War was striking in that it clearly had both dynastic and capitalist motives. The one was a legal dispute about the French law of succession; the other was the clash of English and French commercial interests in the Low Countries.

In the period of the breakdown of the feudal order in Europe and the gradual rise of capitalism - a process that can be seen from the mid-14th onwards (eg the rise in labour costs associated with the labour shortages following the Black Death) - the way this war was waged is also instructive; in the beginning the armies were raised in the traditional manner, by summoning feudal levies. Kings called on lords who called on their knights who brought their retainers and peasant militia. The armies were mostly peasants who fought for their lord as a matter of feudal obligation. During the war, increasingly the 'feudal dues' were paid not in manpower but in silver; this was then used to pay mercenary soldiers.

Thus, the armies moved from being conscripted peasants fighting for their lord to being professional soldiers fighting for coin, paid by the national exchequers.

In short - the move from feudal, dynastic relations of obligation were increasingly replaced with cash relationships, national rhetoric and and increased adminstrative role of the central state.

Just checked the wiki page on the Hundred Years War and the introduction says almost exactly the same as I've just said. You know, of course that by definition you have to assume everything I've just said is wrong (but it isn't).

[Eagle_Syr]

Blake, that ignores the 6,000 years of history before the Hundred Years War

Nation-states originated in Africa and the Middle East long before feudal Europe. And how would you classify the Greek city-states? Or the Roman Republic, and later, Empire?

[Blake's Baby]

You posted while I was posting so I didn't see your post until now. I think you've misunderstood the original question. 'Nation-states' came about with capitalism. They not the same as either 'nations' or 'states'.

The Roman Empire was a state. It wasn't a nation, nor was it a nation-state. The Latins were a 'nation', arguably, but did not have a national state.

Likewise the Egyptian Empire (as you mentioned Africa) or Persia (as you mentioned the Middle East) were not 'nation-states', they were states.

The Greek city-states were states, not nation-states, because in one sense the 'nation' was all Greeks. There was a Greek 'nation', but not a national state, until 1830.

States (class societies controlling a territory) have existed since - 10,000BC maybe? 'Nations' have existed (as tribes) for nearly as long, as far as we can tell. But 'nation states' are a product of the development of capitalism.

If you go to wiki you will se that 'nation-state' is defined in distinction to empires and other forms of supra- or sub-national states: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation-state

[Jimmie Higgins]

Blake, that ignores the 6,000 years of history before the Hundred Years War

Nation-states originated in Africa and the Middle East long before feudal Europe. And how would you classify the Greek city-states? Or the Roman Republic, and later, Empire?

The modern nation state is a distinct and recent concept - a result of the development of capitalism.

There may have been forms that are similar in the past that I am simply unaware of, but to my understanding, classical slave societies were not nation-states. Rome and Greece did not have nations in the modern sense, they had cities which ruled provences and awarded elite citizens governorship over other regions.

[Zealot]

You could look into the treaties of Westphalia.


Blake, that ignores the 6,000 years of history before the Hundred Years War

Nation-states originated in Africa and the Middle East long before feudal Europe. And how would you classify the Greek city-states? Or the Roman Republic, and later, Empire?

There is a difference between nation, state, nation-state, city-state and so on.

[Blake's Baby]

I will say though that nation-states often have complicated foundation-myths that project an unreal history backwards in time to provide a teleological justification. 'England' can be 'historicaly justified' back to the 5th or 6th century AD, for instance, though by the same token 'Burgundy' and 'Lombardy' and 'Andalusia' might also have become nation-states (bits of the Roman Empire settled by Germans after AD400).

[jookyle]

Nation-state as we know them today came about as a result of The Treaty Westphalia, when countries were able to gain sovereignty away from the vatican.