AHC: Prevent Nationalism

I don't quite see the distinction. The early Romans, Spartans and Athenians were clearly patriotic towards their state how was that not nationalism?

Were they nation-states?

http://www.towson.edu/polsci/ppp/sp97/realism/whatisns.htm I personally think they do meet the criteria here, or as close as anyone in their time - but I'm not convinced either way.


But what I meant was that there's a difference between believing in your cultural superiority - which would take a POD before recorded history to dilute - and every group that can call itself a nation (in the sense defined above) demanding its own state.

The idea that every nation (in the sense of every soci-cultural construct) should be its own state and being part of a larger state is wrong on principle is not a development that existed in that era.

Rome managed to rule Athens with less trouble than the 19th century Habsburgs ruled Hungary, and it wasn't that Franz Joseph was a worse emperor than the average Roman Emperor.
 
wouldn't preventing German and Italian unification enough ?

British, Austrian and Russia Empire is more dynastic state than nation state. United States also not nation-states. Ottoman and Qing Empire also not nation states. without German and Italy as "success stories", nationalism value will be less popular. Imperial and Dynastic ideology could then compete with nationalism.

Congress of Vienna could be the POD. Prussia not granted Rhine territories could make them dual-speaking German-Polish people. not granting Austria, Venetian territories could make Italian more divided and less nationalist.

That certainly, I think, would not be the case, German and Italian nationalism led to unification, not the other way around. Likewise, it is worth noting that the famous 'Spring of Nations' occurred concurrently with German and Italian national movements, and did not develop as a consequence thereof.
 

ctayfor

Monthly Donor
A nation state tends to be very exclusive, whereas there is a subtly different form, which could be termed supranational nationalism. I would argue that an example of that was the "Britishness" of the British Empire. My Father, who was born in 1920 and was a veteran of the Second World War, once told me that he was British first and a New Zealander second. I remember countering that I was a New Zealander first and British second. I also grew up defining other Commonwealth nationalities as different, but not foreign and only seeing non-Commonwealth nationalities as foreign. Those attitudes have all but disappeared, but I see them in the US in more or less the same way with (name your state) in place of New Zealander and American in place of the Britishness of the British Empire or pre-1980 Commonwealth.
 
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