If I may put another point of view - not mine but Prof Tim Snyder's (a Harvard Historian)... His thesis - which I do not altogether agree with - is that Britain (or England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland), France, Spain, Portugal, Holland etc have never before been "nation states". They have always been partly colonial looking or Anglo - Scottish, Belgium - Holland or whatever or they have been Imperial powers - and it was not only the British Empire of course. Perhaps the only English attempt at being a 'nation state' was Cromwell. Snyder suggests that the EU is a way out of this - and the thwarted German attempts at Empire. By combining everyone has a 'European Empire' and so again loses the difficulties of asking what a 'nation state' means.
Like I say I do not altogether agree with his thesis - nor understand it that well to be honest - but thought it may be interesting to you. For myself I am pro Piłsudski rather than Dmowski which means in British terms open to neighbours rather than being everyone has to be C of E, white and English.
Like I say I do not altogether agree with his thesis - nor understand it that well to be honest - but thought it may be interesting to you. For myself I am pro Piłsudski rather than Dmowski which means in British terms open to neighbours rather than being everyone has to be C of E, white and English.
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