Eli5: What’s the difference, conceptually between ancient empires like Rome and modern nation states.

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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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Anonymous 0 Comments

People part of a nation, in theory, have a bond between them beyond their shared state. Their culture and language are same/similar, and nation states are just them trying to organize themselves into a country.

Compare that with likes of Romans, which conquered places, called others Romans and was otherwise expansion-lusted.

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