We already know the origin of the key words “nation” and “state”. We are bound now to discover in Teaching Guide number 3 when these two concepts became the favorites ones to organize ourselves as a political community. Let’s remember first of all some facts that are crucial ordered in a chronological order.
The first organized Western society were the Greek Polis, limited to the area of the different Greek cities: Athens, Sparta, Thebes, etc…Greeks were only united for participating in the Olympic Games founded in 776 BC, for fighting the Persians in the medic Wars at the beginning of the 5th century, and under the ephemeral rule of Alexander the Great (336-323). But the Greek Polis were for the rest of the time independent city-states that fought each other when the had the occasion as they demonstrated during the Peloponnesian Wars that first destroyed Athens, then Sparta and finally Thebes. The regime of the Polis could not conceive government away from the city walls. It is significant that when there was an excess of population in a Polis, the surplus of citizens were sent abroad in order to create a new colony that immediately became an independent Polis. This is why Greece was so easily conquered by Rome and became a Roman Province in 146 B.C. Half a century after Spain became a Roman Province (Well in fact two: Hispania Citerior and Ulterior in 197 B.C.).
Why Rome became an Empire? It started as a polis at the end of the 6th century B.C. but 500 years later it was a great power that controlled the whole Mediterranean area. What did the Romans do right? Why they succeeded where Greek Polis failed? First because they were far more organized and they soon developed the idea that they could govern and administrate territories far away from the City of Rome itself. Greek founded independent colonies, Romans founded also colonies (that is cities integrated by Roman citizens) in distant lands, but these Roman colonies were not independent, they were controlled by Roman central Power. First the Republic and after Augustus (27 B.C. – 14 A.D.). Roman extraordinary territorial expansion provoked a brutal crisis of the Republican regime and brought half a century of dreadful civil wars (86-31 B.C), that only ended with the victory of Octavius Caesar Augustus who was a fine politician that convinced that the only way of preserving the peace was to give the power to one man (monarchy). It was first the Prince (First citizen), then the Emperor (as he had full “imperium”) and finally at the end of the 3d century BC the Dominate, because the emperor had become the owner and master of the empire (Dominus).
In 476 disappears the Western Roman Empire and Europe is occupied by Germanic Nations that create independent kingdoms. But this small kings were never as powerful as the roman emperors. The Roman empire was a universal empire because it reigned all over the known antique world. Since 212 AD all inhabitants of the empire became overnight Roman citizens, subject to the same political leader and under the same Law.
Of course this “universal model” of ruling disappeared in 476. But the spirit of Roman universalism did not. First because the Roman Catholic Church replaced Imperial Rome. Remember that “catholic” means “universal” (Cathos and holos: “according to the whole”). So the Roman Pope replaced spiritually the Roman emperors. And Second because soon the popes helped a German King “Charlemagne” (the Great Charles) the king of the Franks to become the first Western Medieval emperor on December 24 of the year 800.
The Universal model had not disappeared, as it was according to the mentality of the Europeans of the Early Middle Ages the idea form of government. In a Catholic society were all men were equal under the eyes of God (Theocracy). Popes and emperors were therefore the most important figures in politics at least until the beginning of the 14th century.
The Late medieval European kings became more and more important, and during the Absolutist period (16th and 17th centuries) became fully independent from Popes and Emperors. Especially after the Westphalia Peace (1648). Nevertheless the idea of a universal empire stroke back constantly under the Holy Roman Empire (962-1806), with Napoleon I (1804-1815) , Napoleon II (1852-1870), the Second Reich (1871-1918), and finally the Third Reich (1933-1945).
And in our days for a while the United States became since 1918, and especially after 1945 the “De facto” World imperial power. And symbolically they still are despite the rising of great world powers as China, or Putin’s Russia.
This is what we study in Teaching Guide nr. 3.
INSTRUCTIONS: First read the text included in your Materials (pages 31 to 45), before proceeding to answer the Concrete Questions, the Concepts and the General Questions.
Concerning the Basic Chronology (pages 46 to 48) the crucial dates are the following: 590-604, 754, 800, 962, 1054, 1075, 1198-1216, 1303, 1378-1417, 1527, 1534, 1618-1648, 1804-1815, 1806, 1852-1870, 1871-1918, 1929, 1933-1945.
TOPIC FOR DISCUSSION IN CLASS: Is globalization a de facto return to an Universal Model, as States cannot act anymore on their own, isolated, in the World context?
Please consider the following aspects:
1. Why Rome became a great Power and Greek Polis disappeared.
2. How did Octavius Cesar Augustus solved the Crisis of the Roman Civil wars?
3. Why after 476 AD the idea of “Universalism” did not disappear in the West?
4. Why Universalism failed after Charles V (1519-1556) in Europe? What conflict provoked the disappearance of the idea that all westerners were under a supreme unique authority.
5. What was the main feature of European Political History after 1648?
6. How was organized Europe under the Napoleonic Empire (1804-1815)?
7. How was Europe organized under Hitler’s Third Reich (1933-1945)?
8. Why the World was so relatively stable during the period 1948-1989?
9. Are States in our global world really as independent as they appear?
10. Is the accelerated "urbanisation" of the planet (by 2050 very much likely 2/3 of the inhabitants of the Planet will live in cities) contributing to globalisation as big cities are beginning to be more important than the States?
