Originally posted by Habu
Of course Greece Japan India China Egypt and Italy all predate France by hundreds and thousands of years according to this logic right?
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Both logics are fundamentally correct.
If you look at the Nation, as a form of govrnment, with a territory, laws, and internal social organization, the parameter to use is the birth of that particular nation, for example, in the case of Italy, will be 1861.
But you can look to the culture, too, the complex of beliefs, uses, basic rules, interactions that are under the "skin" that a nation is.
In this case the origin can be conduced way back in time, generally in the period of the "classics" (Greece, Rome, and so on), unless big modifications happened (sadly usually associated with forms of genocyde), in the structure of the population.
Add to this the fact that, in the cultures, there are always large transition zones, exactly opposed with the precise solution of continuity between nations.
This dualism between people's culture and the concept of nation is something that, i guess, is very difficult to grasp for the people born and educated in the USA, I believe because there, the phenomenon of formation has been largely different and new in history.
