Why do people say nation states only existed after the French/industrial (depending on who you ask) revolution?

Why do people say nation states only existed after the French/industrial (depending on who you ask) revolution?

I've been reading on some Roman history, both republic and empire, and it appears to be similar to our modern notions characteristic of a nation state. The republic had a clear distinction between Romans and non-Romans as they were expanding, the whole us-vs-them mentality on a national basis is particularly evident in the Punic wars. In the Roman empire they had the "cuniuratio Italiae" (pledge of allegiance to Italy) and the "Father of the Motherland" title which I do not remember its Latin name.

It gives the impression that Romans did have national consciousness in some form. Maybe in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance allegiance and identification was more feudal or religious, but I'm not so sure that was the case in in Classical antiquity. Or was Rome an exception and the norm wasn't nation states?

Either way, I'm no history buff and input will be appreciated. One thing I've learned is that any common opinion should be checked thrice.

>Why do people say nation states only existed after the French/industrial (depending on who you ask) revolution?

Because that is where our foundation for the nation state comes from. Before the French/Industrial revolution Kingdoms and States were often comprised of multiple Lands with many different ethnicity, and a King who may not have even been the same ethnicity as his subjects. While there were Kingdoms where the king was the same ethnicity as his subjects it was not true for the majority of kingdoms

>It gives the impression that Romans did have national consciousness in some form.

Rome is what we would call civic nationalism. where there is no one specific race that rules but many races that all swear allegiance to a common government.

>where there is no one specific race that rules but many races that all swear allegiance to a common government.
Also the fact that anyone could become a Roman citizen, you just had to be a good lapdog for the Imperial Government or prove your worth in warfare.

Rome in its earlier days does seem a bit nationalistic, but how much of that can be ascribed to simple tribalism? The difference between that and nationalism is up for discussion. Though one of the most commonly cited reasons for the collapse of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Empire is that, following the Marian reforms, the soldiers out in the field weren't educated aristocrats who had the intelligence and the money to think about the state, the philosophy of Rome, the government, etc.; but simple men who were fighting as their job, to put food on the plate, not for high-minded ideals. And as such they didn't care much for the state as opposed to their immediate commander, the guy who was actually providing payment for their work.

I find it rather unconvincing that nationalism/nativism/tribalism would not be a factor and you could just become Roman like that in the eyes of the public. Even the USA, land of immigrants, discriminated against white immigrants on the basis of xenophobia at first, and even tho it emerged at the turn of the century which was muddied with both the big revolutions there's nothing to say that the attitudes towards immigrants and "the other" were a result of that.

This is purely anecdotal, but I recall watching a show on the history channel, back when it still was about history, talking about some shit going on in Medieval England (can't remember exact century) in which the English were massacring the Welsh. In the Jewish War by Josephus he mentions the enemities between the Nabateans and the Judeans. I find it hard to believe racial/ethnic tension AND identification is a modern invention, although it might be that back in the day it was just harder to create a formal national consciousness.

>I find it rather unconvincing that nationalism/nativism/tribalism would not be a factor
>and you could just become Roman like that in the eyes of the public

I never said that though. You mentioned Josephus, He became roman and is still to this day considered a traitor by the Jewish community. I was simply explaining how Rome differed from the modern nation states of today

Its important to note that pagans didn't really give a shit about boundaries between religions. It was normal to adopt local rituals and customs when spending extended periods in foreign regions. Really the jews were the first people to specially forbid worship of other gods in their religion.

>nation-state
is on a whole different scale than a city-state. You can think of Rome as a city-state which eventually got way too big for its own britches and came apart at the seams, with its daughter cultures forming the foundation for what would eventually become centralized nation-states

>It gives the impression that Romans did have national consciousness in some form.
that's because modern authors frame the discussion using modern language. Romans did not have a national conscious the way that we did, hence the near continuous uprisings and civil wars (with the notable exception of the pax romana). Romans had no conception of it being bad to wage war on your own country if it meant profiting personally, and this was only checked during the mid-Republic, when people were still demonstrating their worth to the city, and in the principate when the Emperors were disproportionately more powerful than anyone else.

> identification was more feudal or religious, but I'm not so sure that was the case in in Classical antiquity.
It was even more religious and clan-based, we just don't have as many original sources as we do for the medieval period. During the punic wars "Rome" wasn't a nation but an alliance of city-states. People did not start framing the discussion of politics outside of a religious paradigm and as a secular-naturalist one until after the publication of Hobbes' Leviathan

>Or was Rome an exception and the norm wasn't nation states?
Romanization was a sort of crude realization of nation-state principles: bringing new peoples into the fold with a tiered citizenship model where proper behavior granted them more say in government. This process broke down in the late Republic, was rendered into a farce by the time of the "first citizen", and a cruel joke by the time Caracalla made everyone in the empire a citizen and shifted a dramatic tax and regulatory burden onto them with little in the way of benefit or say in how the government was managed.

A Roman wasn't somebody from Rome though. Some romans were gauls, and africans, and iberians.

There is plenty of English nationalism in Shakespeare's history plays, eg the John of Gaunt speech.
Also the Dutch developed national consciousness before the French or the industrial revolution, but nobody likes to think about the Dutch.
People like to think it only started after those events because it fits in with Marxist theory, but there were clear signs of nationalism before

Most Nations only got states very late in history. Some still don't have one like the Kurds.

it's called the median empire.

>Why do people say nation states only existed after the French/industrial (depending on who you ask) revolution?

Wasn't it the Peace of Westphalia that is seen to be the thing that gave birth to the nation state?

>The roman fondness for italy.
Italy was a region of multiple ethnicities back then. Calling italy backa then a nation in the sense of a nation state is thus inaccurate.

Roman was not an ethnicity but a ciitizenship. The native romans were latins. As such a jew could totally be a roman. He would still be the target for racism due to him not being a latin.

>the jews were the first people to specially forbid worship of other gods in their religion.
Source pl0x

>median empire.
Lol, brainlet

After arab invasion, many iranians tribes moved to levant, Mesopotamia, all those tribes migrsting were called kurds

Some mixed and some remained pure but looks very inbreed

The way we envision nation states today only come to existence post Revolution, but Marxists use it to claim that nations themselves only came to existence post Revolution

This isn't true though, at least not for a significant portion of their existence. They were mostly nativist, and even when not politically so they still were socially.

Enlightenment discredited the idea of divine right or other noble claims to superiority, so the only legitimate basis for a State was republicanism. Of course, States with claims to a certain amount of territory existed anyway so they had to scramble to some way to claim they actually were legitimate; this was done through claiming that the diverse inhabitants of the areas States ruled were really one people distinct from the rest of the world; they then implemented cultural policies to make this idea seem sensible. In reality, however, the territory of each state largely descends from feudal possessions of some monarch or another, not anything inherent about the people within the state.

Assyrian genocides/displacement of conquered peoples and settlement of their own people on conquered land seems to be some proof of proto-national identity

ever try using google?

I wonder if you guys who insist that nationalism didn't exist before 1792 also are the ones who laugh at anyone arguing for the concept of renaissance.

Iranians have certainly considered themselves a nation since the Sassanid Era, arguably all the way back to Achaemenids.

Ever heard of the burden of proof?