So it is this weird in between time in Europe — schopenhauer1

Yet note that you are talking about 500 years.

From 2020 to 1520 is five hundred years also, and during that time there's been a lot of transformation too. The fact is, we can notice the transformation that has taken in our lifetime, in 50 years and perhaps understand that 100 years, and we typically can have some artifacts or old books that are a hundred years old. But once you are talking about 400-500 years, it is no wonder how distant the times are. There is a huge time gap between Charlemagne and Augustus and the height of the Roman empire.

The city of Rome went from a population of 800,000 in the beginning of the period to a population of 30,000 by the end of the period. — Gus Lamarch

This is one of the most startling statistics in history ever, the population of the city of Rome:



That only well into the 20th Century the city, then having been the capital of unified Italy already from the 19th Century, the population exceeds the population at the height of the Roman Empire in Antiquity tells a fascinating story.

As a whole, the period of late antiquity was accompanied by an overall population decline in almost all Europe, and a reversion to more of a subsistence economy. Long-distance markets disappeared, and there was a reversion to a greater degree of local production and consumption, rather than webs of commerce and specialized production. What was once a "globalized" world, became a isolated fragmented continent - people living in Italy didn't have any notion or information of how was life in Egypt from the 6th to the 9th century, contrary to the roman period, where distant information was easily accessed -. These long distances knowledge only became the norm again after the 10th century onwards. — Gus Lamarch

A globalized economy creates market demand for specialization and specialized labour. I've allways thought that a society where poets can support their family by selling and reading poems (or for that matter artists can be rich and not just the wandering clown type or handyman) tells of wealth that hardly will happen in a secluded regional economy. Somewhere there has had to be created that wealth that can be put into art. And if it at first people like artist that are somewhat non-essential for people to survive, then come engineers and other professions that need an highly advance education system. Now the importance of these people are obvious to any ruler, but then when the true transformation happens in more than 100 years of time, even if the political changes can be as abrupt as the Roman Legions simply leaving England, it is hard to grasp the change.

De-globalization, the process of diminishing interdependence and integration, is the logical consequence when long term trade vanishes and when the state or states cannot secure peace and stability.

We should consider too, the theories of both Michael Rostovtzeff and Ludwig von Mises about the economic collapse of the Roman Empire: — Gus Lamarch

Well, debasing money is likely more of a desperate response to a problem that you cannot solve otherwise. It's a good point, but I don't think it's the most important reason as it is more of a response. I think Nero had a ruinous debacle with inflation and even more opposed him when he made his own version of a death tax: meaning that Nero's henchmen would go around killing rich people and then collect the tax. (No wonder one of the biggest armies was formed against Nero, but once the emperor died this army broke up.)

I think the problem was that for rapid economic growth Rome needed to conquer new territories, plunder them and when Rome could not expand anymore, when it had no loot to bring back to Rome and new slaves to us, the whole huge standing army needed to defend the borders became a huge burden. Soldiers manning a wall in the middle of nowhere are an expense.

This is one of the most startling statistics in history ever: the population of the city of Rome: — ssu

This represents very well the state of regression that Europe passed from the 5th to the 9th centuries. Only Constantinople would remain with a population that could be considered metropolitan with 800,000 inhabitants between the 9th and 11th centuries. It is not surprisingly that the most urbanized cities of the medieval period - Constantinople, Tessalonike, Athens, Adrianople, Syracuse, etc... - were still under the control of the Roman State - already known as "Basileía Rhōmaíōn" or "Monarchy of the Romans" -.

I think the problem was that for rapid economic growth Rome needed to conquer new territories, plunder them and when Rome could not expand anymore, when it had no loot to bring back to Rome and new slaves to us, the whole huge standing army needed to defend the borders became a huge burden. Soldiers manning a wall in the middle of nowhere are an expense. — ssu

This view strongly agrees with the theories of Arnold J. Toynbee and James Burke:

"The Romans had no budgetary system and thus wasted whatever resources they had available. The economy of the Empire was a Raubwirtschaft or plunder economy based on looting existing resources rather than producing anything new. The Empire relied on riches from conquered territories (this source of revenue ending, of course, with the end of Roman territorial expansion) or on a pattern of tax collection that drove small-scale farmers into destitution (and onto a dole that required even more exactions upon those who could not escape taxation), or into dependency upon a landed elite exempt from taxation. With the cessation of tribute from conquered territories, the full cost of their military machine had to be borne by the citizenry.

An economy based upon slave labor precluded a middle class with buying power. The Roman Empire produced few exportable goods. Material innovation, whether through entrepreneurialism or technological advancement, all but ended long before the final dissolution of the Empire. Meanwhile, the costs of military defense and the pomp of Emperors continued. Financial needs continued to increase, but the means of meeting them steadily eroded. In the end, due to economic failure, even the armor and weaponry of soldiers became so obsolete that the enemies of the Empire had better armor and weapons as well as larger forces."

I do value those "old-school" views.

Perhaps the problems of the Roman Empire can be thought with alternative history: What would have it taken for the Roman Empire to survive, perhaps until this day?

Could we have avoided the De-globalization of the Middle Ages, but just continued from Antiquity to Renaissance? The love affair Renaissance had with Antiquity seems that this could have happened. Could entrepreneurialism have been restored, perhaps creating proto-capitalism? Or for the Roman Empire to survive, would it had needed a technological edge with the Romans replacing their ballistas with culverins and cannons? The East Romans had their nafta throwers that were potent against ships, so they did innovate a bit. Would the Romans have needed some innovation in ship building and then go on to conquer the World ruling the waves of not just the Mediterranean? At least they would have the drive and the correct attitude to do that, when thinking about the martial culture of Rome.

I do value those "old-school" views. — ssu

So we are two.

Perhaps the problems of the Roman Empire can be thought with alternative history: What would have it taken for the Roman Empire to survive, perhaps until this day?

Could we have avoided the De-globalization of the Middle Ages, but just continued from Antiquity to Renaissance? The love affair Renaissance had with Antiquity seems that this could have happened. Could entrepreneurialism have been restored, perhaps creating proto-capitalism? Or for the Roman Empire to survive, would it had needed a technological edge with the Romans replacing their ballistas with culverins and cannons? The East Romans had their nafta throwers that were potent against ships, so they did innovate a bit. Would the Romans have needed some innovation in ship building and then go on to conquer the World ruling the waves of not just the Mediterranean? At least they would have the drive and the correct attitude to do that, when thinking about the martial culture of Rome. — ssu

I - speaking my personal opinion now - find it inappropriate to talk about "alternative scenarios" because any change made to the scenario that has become history - fact - would completely change the whole story in the long run. It is as if you are creating a new timeline. The instant you created it, it appears to be as straight as the original, however, as it expands - into the future - it curves further and further away from reality. It's very improbable that the Roman Empire would stay static in its borders if it survived its fall. Maybe we would have a Christian Roman Africa? I don't know, and I think it doesn't matter because it didn't happen.

In my view, the study of Roman civilization, is to compare with ours and to repair errors so that they do not repeat themselves, and victories, so that they are redone. But anyone who's a person with an intellect slightly above average will see that the same mistakes are being made, the same decadence, the same nihilism, the same thinking.

The right way of thinking for me its this:

Rome fell right? Yes

Why did it fall? - Insert causes here -

Our society could fall as Rome did? Yes

So let's study it to prevent our society's collapse.

From 2020 to 1520 is five hundred years also, and during that time there's been a lot of transformation too. The fact is, we can notice the transformation that has taken in our lifetime, in 50 years and perhaps understand that 100 years, and we typically can have some artifacts or old books that are a hundred years old. But once you are talking about 400-500 years, it is no wonder how distant the times are. There is a huge time gap between Charlemagne and Augustus and the height of the Roman empire. — ssu

True, though I thin the "Dark Ages" in Europe had a slower progression of change than say the 500 years after the Renaissance. But I guess my question is, how is it between that time, that the Germanic peoples went from tribal to feudal? Specifically in my last post, it seems that Germanic tribes were more pastoral than they were farmers. Yet, feudalism was dominated by crops, farming, planting, etc. How and when did this take place in the years between lets say 500 and 900 CE?

True, though I thin the "Dark Ages" in Europe had a slower progression of change than say the 500 years after the Renaissance. — schopenhauer1

I would like to make it public my favor for the use of the term "Dark Ages" to cover the period from 476 AD - deposition of Romulus Augustulus by Odoacer - until the year 1066 - victory of William the Conqueror for the throne of the Kingdom of England, and death of Harald Hardrada - bringing the end of the Viking Age - in the battle of Stanford Bridge - to contextualize the cultural, economic, moral, and religious retrocess that happened between that period. The argument that those opposed to the use of "Dark Ages" is that it was a period with some cultural and technological advancement, using the examples of Charlemagne's Empire and the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba, however, I argue. How could there be a technological and cultural "advance", since the period occurred on the ruins of a precursor civilization that was more advanced in all aspects?

I agree that the term shouldn't be applied to the Late Middle Ages - from 1067 to 1453 - because the Christian Germanic culture during that period really brought a new vision of culture and technological air different and independent from the old Roman heritage. However, I cannot see the period between 476 and 1066 as being anything more than a "Age of Darkness".

For egoism sake, even the medievals saw the time from 476 to 1066 a era of Dark. Petrach - medieval scholar that lived from 1304 to 1374 - said:

"Amidst the errors there shone forth men of genius; no less keen were their eyes, although they were surrounded by darkness and dense gloom".

Even the use of the term "Rennaissance" seems to imply that before it, there was something "Bleak" - and that was in the "Modern Age" -.

So it is this weird in between time in Europe, between the Roman fall and the rise of feudalism, roughly about 400 CE- 900 CE, whereby the (often) migrating Germanic tribes transformed more-or-less into non-tribal, yet feudal entities. There are things to unpack here:
1.) The Germanic tribes prior to the post-Roman times, were largely pastoral. Cattle and livestock defined their economic lifestyle more than planting and farming.

2.) Post-Roman Empire the feudal system relied on farming to increase production for feudal lord in a more-or-less self-sufficient manner. This may have been an import from the manorial system in southern Europe (read Roman Empire's influence) whereby there was a Roman elite and his landholdings. However, due to the economic collapse, which you rightly point to, this manorial system went from commercial agriculture (to be sold in wide networks of trade), to local use (very short-distances, local, and often self-contained). Thus the slave systems of old gave way to peasants and surfs. However, these peasants and surfs must have slowly themselves turned away from their ancestral pastoral lifestyle as land was closed in by armies and such. Actually, I don't know the details of this transformation of Germanic pastoral to farming feudal, so that would be interesting to explore. — schopenhauer1

Yeah, I don't really have any qualm calling it a "Dark Age", one of many in human history. Dark Ages tend to be ages that occur after flourishings. They are sort of desolutions of empires, ideas, commerce, and technology. Many societies have had them for environmental, cultural, and economic reasons. Label it whatever you want, but Dark Ages fits fine with me. I also think the years you use are well enough. I've seen everything from 800s-1000s, so anywhere in there probably works, depending on how you demarcate the age.

I guess I pose the same question to you as SSU:

So it is this weird in between time in Europe, between the Roman fall and the rise of feudalism, roughly about 400 CE- 900 CE, whereby the (often) migrating Germanic tribes transformed more-or-less into non-tribal, yet feudal entities. There are things to unpack here:
1.) The Germanic tribes prior to the post-Roman times, were largely pastoral. Cattle and livestock defined their economic lifestyle more than planting and farming.

2.) Post-Roman Empire the feudal system relied on farming to increase production for feudal lord in a more-or-less self-sufficient manner. This may have been an import from the manorial system in southern Europe (read Roman Empire's influence) whereby there was a Roman elite and his landholdings. However, due to the economic collapse, which you rightly point to, this manorial system went from commercial agriculture (to be sold in wide networks of trade), to local use (very short-distances, local, and often self-contained). Thus the slave systems of old gave way to peasants and surfs. However, these peasants and surfs must have slowly themselves turned away from their ancestral pastoral lifestyle as land was closed in by armies and such. Actually, I don't know the details of this transformation of Germanic pastoral to farming feudal, so that would be interesting to explore. — schopenhauer1

So it is this weird in between time in Europe, between the Roman fall and the rise of feudalism, roughly about 400 CE- 900 CE, whereby the (often) migrating Germanic tribes transformed more-or-less into non-tribal, yet feudal entities. There are things to unpack here:
1.) The Germanic tribes prior to the post-Roman times, were largely pastoral. Cattle and livestock defined their economic lifestyle more than planting and farming.

2.) Post-Roman Empire the feudal system relied on farming to increase production for feudal lord in a more-or-less self-sufficient manner. This may have been an import from the manorial system in southern Europe (read Roman Empire's influence) whereby there was a Roman elite and his landholdings. However, due to the economic collapse, which you rightly point to, this manorial system went from commercial agriculture (to be sold in wide networks of trade), to local use (very short-distances, local, and often self-contained). Thus the slave systems of old gave way to peasants and surfs. However, these peasants and surfs must have slowly themselves turned away from their ancestral pastoral lifestyle as land was closed in by armies and such. Actually, I don't know the details of this transformation of Germanic pastoral to farming feudal, so that would be interesting to explore. — schopenhauer1

@Gus Lamarch

Yet, feudalism was dominated by crops, farming, planting, etc. How and when did this take place in the years between lets say 500 and 900 CE? — schopenhauer1

Yeah, I don't really have any qualm calling it a "Dark Age", one of many in human history. Dark Ages tend to be ages that occur after flourishings. They are sort of desolutions of empires, ideas, commerce, and technology. Many societies have had them for environmental, cultural, and economic reasons. Label it whatever you want, but Dark Ages fits fine with me. I also think the years you use are well enough. I've seen everything from 800s-1000s, so anywhere in there probably works, depending on how you demarcate the age. — schopenhauer1

I think it is a problem located only here in Brazil; this discussion of the term "Dark Ages". Almost all "academics" favor ending the use of "Dark Ages" because "it makes young people have a bad impression of the past", when over 95% of them doesn't even worry about the past 20 years.

But I guess my question is, how is it between that time, that the Germanic peoples went from tribal to feudal? Specifically in my last post, it seems that Germanic tribes were more pastoral than they were farmers. Yet, feudalism was dominated by crops, farming, planting, etc. How and when did this take place in the years between lets say 500 and 900 CE? — schopenhauer1

I think this has already been answered by our past discussion and your well-placed points.

"1.) The Catholic Church had no interest in competing with tribal chieftains for power and conversion. Local chieftains often had the backing of tradition (including pagan religious practices) to keep them in power. Wherever a chieftain converted to Christianity, so went the tribe. Thus converting to Christianity, often stripped away tribal privileges and rites to Christian ones, taking away local identity and replacing it with a more universal one.

2.) Charlemagne's own policies unified Germanic tribal identities. His court was filled with key positions from leaders of different tribal affiliations. He can have Saxon, Gothic, Jutes, Burgundians, all in the same court. This intermixing led to slow dissipation over probably 100 years of keeping tribal affiliations intact in favor of hereditary identification only.

3.) Roman Law- With the integration of Germanic tribes into the Roman political and military system, these Germans became more Romanized. This in itself, could have diminished the identity with tribe for identity with a territory or legal entity. Thus various Germanic "dux" (dukes) within the Roman Empire were already in place along Spain and southern France (as were ancestors of Charlemagne). Being incorporated in a multi-ethnic Empire itself could diminish the fealty towards local affiliation with any one tribe. With the Church's help in keeping records in monasteries and libraries, these leaders retained Roman law far into the Holy Roman Empire's reign.

4.) Nobility transfer by kings- Since the unification of Charlemagne, there was a conference of land and title from top-down sources. As local tribal kings (chieftains?) were quashed during the wars of Charlemagne, he then doled out titles of land (dukes and counts) to those he favored, thus diminishing the local identity of leadership further.

It is a fact that the barbarian germanic tribes eventually assimilated to Roman culture. The point is that they simply made this culture theirs:

"Over time, the Lombards gradually adopted Roman titles, names, and traditions. By the time Paul the Deacon was writing in the late 8th century, the Lombardic language, dress and hairstyles had all disappeared. Paul writes:

The Lombards live and dress as if all the land they currently inhabit - referring to Italy - was their native land: We are from Lombardy! Some would have the courage to shout - referring to the Lombards who called Italy as Lombardy -."

My point is that Charlemagne was the first European monarch, after the fall of Rome to really bring to public knowledge to the masses, that everything they had was the legacy of a fallen civilization - remembering here, that for the ordinary citizen of the 8th century from Western Europe, the Byzantine Empire was seen as the "nation of the Greeks" -.

The only real barbaric people who were completely assimilated and tried to maintain Roman order during the fall of the Roman Empire and afterwards, were the Visigoths. The Visigoths were romanized central Europeans who had moved west from the Danube Valley. They became foederati of Rome, and wanted to restore the Roman order against the hordes of Vandals, Alans and Suebi. The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 AD; therefore, the Visigoths believed they had the right to take the territories that Rome had promised in Hispania in exchange for restoring the Roman order - and they tried -."

And so forth,

And so forth, — Gus Lamarch

Granted, but I mean literally, how does it look for a pastoral people to turn farmer? What would a hypothetical generation of change of this economic type look like? What are the nuts-and-bolts of this kind of lifestyle change? Is it by force? Is it circumstances? Is it a concerted change? Incentives and motivations?

But nobody did even try this as they understood what a useless bickering match would it all have ended up with countries demanding their famous persons to be put in euros. And this shows how these historical people are linked to a national heritage. Even if Charlemagne was the "father of Europe", he surely was a French king, especially for the French. — ssu

Europe is trying to be more than a collection of rabidly aggressive self-centred microstates. European nationalism killed millions, least we forget. We are trying to become something different than a bunch of nationalist idiots. So of course we have an identity problem...

Charlemagne was of course not French because this identity didn’t exist back then. He too had an identity problem: he was ruling romanized folks with the help of a Roman Church, but he was Frankish... so he worked on symbols, to help forge some synthesis here, like the EU bureaucrats do. And one such symbol he used was the emperor thing.

I - find it inappropriate to talk about "alternative scenarios" because any change made to the scenario that has become history - fact - would completely change the whole story in the long run. — Gus Lamarch

Yet that's the whole question: would it really completely change the story? The superficial story of events happening and how exactly people reacted to them would change, but would the narrative in the Longue durée, about which the French Annales school were so enthusiastic about, really change into something totally different that we couldn't relate to?

Alternative scenarios only give some insight to the underlying power structures and of the reasons why something happened. They work like a war game: a highly realistic war game will give the players insight what actually would happen or why actually something happened. And throwing dice gives us the effect of chance. Surely the battles in a war game don't follow exactly historical reality, but they do show how the weights were stacked on the belligerents.

In my view, the study of Roman civilization, is to compare with ours and to repair errors so that they do not repeat themselves, and victories, so that they are redone. But anyone who's a person with an intellect slightly above average will see that the same mistakes are being made, the same decadence, the same nihilism, the same thinking. — Gus Lamarch

Any person? I think a lot of very intelligent people do believe in the uniqueness of our time and truly think we are really different and our society is totally different from earlier times.

This is using history as a guide to the present. Still, we shouldn't forget that every historical era was unique and we cannot create a mathematical formula to explain it.

The right way of thinking for me its this:

Rome fell right? Yes

Why did it fall? - Insert causes here -

Our society could fall as Rome did? Yes

So let's study it to prevent our society's collapse. — Gus Lamarch

But there's no barbarian horde on the gates that could defeat our society. Even if the US and Russia would decide to have an all-out nuclear exchange and bomb also China on the way, because why not, the places left out from the carnage, South America, Africa, Oceania, still uphold all the knowledge of our society. Our society simply isn't as fragile as the globalized society in Antiquity, because then there were huge differences between the "high-cultures" and the so-called barbarians. Just think how much people were literate then and now.

Europe is trying to be more than a collection of rabidly aggressive self-centred microstates. European nationalism killed millions, least we forget. We are trying to become something different than a bunch of nationalist idiots. So of course we have an identity problem... — Olivier5

Oh yes, "never again" after WW2 was the true fighting call for the EEC/EU. And that's about it, apart from the vague idea of being the counter response to US supremacy and the obvious push from large corporations.

You see, you actually also made the example of why EU is in such trouble: unable to create a larger pan-European identity, the EU then has taken into attacking those "rabidly aggressive self-centered microstates" that actually make it up. The inability to acknowledge that the union is indeed a confederation of independent states, again clearly shown with the response to the corona-pandemic, is one of the root problems of the EU. The EU has nothing else as an answer than more integration. It is so unconfident about itself that it thinks not having more integration will lead to an abrupt collapse of the union. And the idea that the EU is the only thing preventing Europeans to getting back to killing each other is simply ridiculous. Many European countries are totally capable of being peaceful with each other without an EU, so it's very foolish and actually condescending to think so.

And this really is a tragedy, as the English have shown that creating new identity above the old national identity is possible. Being British was cleverly used to unified their defeated islanders to share a common identity (even if it didn't work with the Irish) and it has worked at least for now, which is an accomplishment. The total lack of using anything else than bureaucrats to advance the EU shows the short sightedness of those promoting the EU. So does the thinking that economic growth and prosperity would take care of this identity problem... especially when the common market hurts some countries like Greece and favors others like Germany.

(I'll answer this separately as it is a bit different topic)

Charlemagne was of course not French because this identity didn’t exist back then. He too had an identity problem: he was ruling romanized folks with the help of a Roman Church, but he was Frankish... so he worked on symbols, to help forge some synthesis here, like the EU bureaucrats do. And one such symbol he used was the emperor thing. — Olivier5

Yet the real issue is how to get the masses to love their new identity, not only the elite.That's the hard part as it doesn't happen with a decree or sharing your wealth and power with your cronies.

The story of the Kalmar Union and comparing it to the United Kingdom tells a lot. The North European personal union lasted for some centuries until it broke up and simply was forgotten. Now is just thought as being a feudal oddity of the medieval times whereas nationalities like being Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish are the building blocks how we talk about history here. Yet if there would those rabidly nationalist and militant Kalmarists around, perhaps the union would have survived even to this day.

And looking at the history of the British Isles, you can see just how much effort have to be made to create a common new identity and how really people take these things into heart. The Romans did it smartly by enlarging the identity of being Roman and being around enough time for people to relate to this identity, unlike let's say the Macedonians with their brief time in the sun.

The story of the Kalmar Union and comparing it to the United Kingdom tells a lot. ...

And looking at the history of the British Isles, you can see just how much effort have to be made to create a common new identity and how really people take these things into heart. — ssu

The Kalmar Union is interesting, thanks. (You might wish to check the history of the Delian league for another example).

The Brits did well except in Ireland. Northern Ireland is still fucked up and with Brexit it's going to worsen.

Of course, European nationalism in the 19th century erased prior identities through schooling, national languages and nationalist historiographies. The process is still not complete in Italy.

What's interesting with those who identify with their empire, is the pride it gives them. You can see some of that in the nostalgia for the USSR, the joy they had of being part of something big and powerful. They say things like "you could travel for days and the countryside would change and the people too but you would still be at home, using one currency". Not that they all liked the Soviet Union when it was still a thing but they liked that in it: the huge size, the sense of a community of nations united in a powerful league.

The Americans get this feeling.

The Americans get this feeling. — Olivier5

Yet Americans have an ace in their pocket at this: anybody can become an American.

The ideology on what the country was founded upon is extremely important to Americans even to this day, and is one of the cornerstones of their nation. Only the Native Americans tribes could truly go with the normal way of looking at a country (by the land that has been inhabited for ages by the same people that share a language and culture). The US has had to replace this kind of "nativism" with the "Founding Fathers", the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as being what the country is about. And thanks to the global dominance of English, the same language has been easily taken by the newcomers and an American culture is quite dominant too.

And that makes a Michael Moore and an Trump supporter finding Americans values to their liking, even if they are quite opposed in nearly everything.

Isn't there a set of European values emerging as well, around social and environmental responsibility, a rejection of profit as the only goal, the use of diplomacy rather than war, the rejection of parochialism and a defense of human rights?

You could interpret Brexit as a failure of the Brits to reassess their nationalistic historiography, a failure to realise that their British identity was made up, created politically, and that it is to a degree based on fake nationalistic history and xenophobia.

Isn't there a set of European values emerging as well — Olivier5

A very good question. I have to admit, not in anyway close as Americans values are dear to Americans. Far too easily someone defines "European values" in a way that the gets a lot of Europeans don't agree with the definition.

You could interpret Brexit as a failure of the Brits to reassess their nationalistic historiography, a failure to realise that their British identity was made up, created politically, and that it is to a degree based on fake nationalistic history and xenophobia. — Olivier5

Umm, it isn't fake as identities aren't fake. Every identity is made up. If people have come up with ideas that unite them, don't think that it makes them fake. And belief of there existing nations is a far more older idea than the 19th Century, where nation-states, something bit different, came to be the new vogue.

The UK has seen itself detached from Europe for a very long time as there obviously is the English Channel to start with. And this separation from the "Continental Europe" isn't so different from what other European nations think about their relation to "Europe".

I guess only France and the Benelux countries see themselves as being in the heart of Europe. Nordic countries see themselves as North European and use often the term Central Europe. Spain and Portugal or Greece see them quite far from Brussels too. Eastern European countries that were behind the Iron Curtain see themselves being different from Western Europe. Russians see themselves quite differently and many see Russians also in this way. Then there is the question just how European is Turkey or Georgia or Armenia?

people have come up with ideas that unite them, don't think that it makes them fake — ssu

Forced in a top down manner on the people, I mean, recent, not cast in stone. In fact the Scott's voted against Brexit and whether they will stay in the UK remains to be seen.

I guess only France and the Benelux countries see themselves as being in the heart of Europe. — ssu

Germans and Italians too. By and large it's the old Charlemagne empire who feels European. The others are more opportunistic in their adhesion to the project.

Forced in a top down manner on the people — Olivier5

What wouldn't be forced in a top down manner? That's the way societies work.

Germans and Italians too. — Olivier5

Germans have a problematic stance towards their history and Italians do feel that Brussels and the EU is far away. The best example is Greece. People do understand the role that Greece has played as the birthplace for Western European culture, but we (in the West) then disregard it's Roman past as we call the East-Romans Byzantinians. They called themselves Romans, yet spoke Greek. Another divide comes with the Church.

Italians think that Brussels tends to be unfair to them. Or Germany. Or France. That we French look down on them. That the Americans summarize them as pasta e mandolina. That nobody takes them seriously, whereas Dante and Michelangelo, whereas Galileo and Marconi, whereas Albinoni Vivaldi Verdi Puccini Rossini !

This all just shows how problematic a singular idea of "Europe" and "European" is.

When you think of it, Europe's strength is in it's diversity. That might sound at first very nice and politically correct, but the simple fact is that this means disjointedness, disunity, and that you do have huge problems in creating a federation similar to the US. As we talked earlier, the Nordic countries have had totally open borders for a long time, lots of cooperation on various field and the countries view themselves as Nordic/Scandinavian. Yet there is ABSOLUTELY NO intention from anyone to recreate the Kalmar Union. There wasn't even the will to use Scandinavism as an ideology to unify Norway, Sweden and Denmark. There simply wasn't any Garibaldi or Bismarck here that would have unified the territories through military force. The political will simply didn't exist and doesn't exist.

With this insight we should look at Europe: yes, countries are willing to cooperate and have good relations between others, yet they are quite independent and value that independence. One can see the structural problem that the EU has. In my view the EU would have to understand it cannot be the US of Europe, it indeed is a confederacy of independent states, and it is wrong and actually harmful to try to reach something more.

It comes back to the fact that if you are willing really to unify Europe under one political rule, you have to use force, just like Napoleon, Charlemagne, and just like the Romans did. And the military has to be dominant and always on the alert, otherwise it will break up. This is something that the EU is not willing to understand. Perhaps this is the lesson from all the European empires that have controlled vast parts of Europe that we seem not to learn.

In my view the EU would have to understand it cannot be the US of Europe, it indeed is a confederacy of independent states, and it is wrong and actually harmful to try to reach something more.

It comes back to the fact that if you are willing really to unify Europe under one political rule, you have to use force, just like Napoleon, Charlemagne, and just like the Romans. And the military has to be dominant and always on the alert, otherwise it will break up. This is something that the EU is not willing to understand. — ssu

Who wants another European war? If the EU has any advantage, it's in offering a peaceful way to do some level of integration. It's the value proposition of the EU. And yes, the price to pay is slowness and hence patience. It's a long-term project.

Maybe another thing than internal war will speed up the creation of a European spirit. I'm thinking of a scenario in which European countries fight together against a common aggressor from outside.

There simply wasn't any Garibaldi or Bismarck here that would have unified the territories through military force. The political will simply didn't exist and doesn't exist. — ssu

What's interesting is how the Viking kingdoms turned into various nation-states after conversion to Christianity. Can you elaborate on that process and how Norway, Denmark, and Sweden became distinct but without using post-facto realities? I wonder how much was constructed out of leadership quarrels versus actual differences early on.

If the EU has any advantage, it's in offering a peaceful way to do some level of integration. — Olivier5

Emphasis on the "some level" is appropriate as that is what all EU members want.

What's interesting is how the Viking kingdoms turned into various nation-states after conversion to Christianity. Can you elaborate on that process and how Norway, Denmark, and Sweden became distinct but without using post-facto realities? — schopenhauer1

Start from the languages: they are different. Swedes and Norwegians can understand somewhat each other while (at least in my view) Danish is a lot more different.

Perhaps Benkei or other Dutch persons here could answer this, but Dutch and German are somewhat close to each other, but still different languages. As are Finnish and Estonian, for that matter.

I just thought I'd note, because all I do should be of note, that I've begun reading The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World by Catherine Nixby, who's described as a "journalist and classicist." Being a mere journalist, though she studied at Cambridge, her book is being derided by most academics as a mere polemic. She's the child of a former monk and former nun, however, so she must have some knowledge of the destructive potential of the religious zeal of Christians derived from exposure to Sancta Mater Ecclesia, which gave much to those of us under her stern rule, including some of the classic world, but took from us far more of that world, or so I would say, to our loss.

We can never really know the Classical World, including Rome and its empire, because its destruction was so thorough and relentless.

It may not be what the members want, but it's what they can get and agree upon right now... What they have been able to agree upon until now. Of course if Merkel could invade the other EU countries and manage the whole thing coherently, it would go faster... but she can't.

But did these regional distinctions take place before or after the Viking era? I would imagine it was minor differences the further back you go and then increased over time. But how and when and factors, I am not sure.