What Is a Nation? How Is It Different from a State? What Is a Nation State?

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A Nation is something that can be difficult to define, within the one topic many thoughts and theories were created. What is the true meaning of a Nation and what does a nation look like? When and where did nationalism start? Another thing to consider is how is a nation different from a state? Together with what is a nation-state? To discover what are the commonalities and differences, so there can be an attempt to correctly define and differentiate all three terms. This is what will be covered in this essay. When it comes to defining what a nation is, there are many different views not just on ‘what is a nation?’ but how did it come about as well as when and where it began. This part of essay will be focus on two particular views; these are the ‘Primordialist’ and the ‘Modernist’ views. To correctly define a nation oxford dictionary describes it as “a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular state or territory: the world’s leading industrialized nations.” Now that the word nation has been clearly defined, it is now time to separate and distinguish the two views of a nation that particularly sparked after the Second World War. As earlier described these two views are the primordialist and modernist views. The basis of the Primordialist view of ‘what is a nation?’ is described by Ernest Gellner as “Nations were there all the time… and that the past matters a great deal.” This simplified means that nations go as far back as ancient times. Primordialism makes the point that nations were built from finding similarities among people and building a community around that, so each community thinks differently and creates its own unique nation. That being true to the primordialists beliefs on nationalism, wouldn’t a question like; ‘Would a peasant in 12th century England living far off in land have any idea of
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