In my world history class we just reached the development of the first “nation states” such as France, which so far don’t seem all that different from other, older, civilizations. I am mainly curious why historians refer to France as developing into a “nation state”, while earlier empires like Rome and Persia weren’t considered to be nation states.
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A nation is more a less a collection of people that agree to form a group. That can be some kind of tribe, people who speak a similar language, that have gone through similar shit or that simply agree that that would be a cool thing to do.
If these people then occupy a piece of land as their own, they can declare themselves a state. What exactly a state is is kinda disputed. Some argue it’s the combination of people + land + government, but often enough it comes down to whether states that are already recognized as states agree that you’re also one. Though that leaves the question what made them states in the first place.
An empire on the other hand is just the area of effect by a ruler. The people being in the empire might not consider themselves part of the empire, they don’t form the basis of the state, they might not even like each other in the first place and don’t want to form a group with any of the other. They just happened to end up in the empire because the emperor thought it’s cool to snatch their land. Which they might also “respectfully disagree” with.
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