
Beneath Another Sky: a historian’s global take on migration and identity - Thevet
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2017/12/beneath-another-sky-historian-s-revisionist-global-take-migration-and-identity
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alexasmyths
" Such regressive developments can only be pauses in an ongoing forward
movement."

Trashy globalist arrogance.

The 'Germanics' have been around for a few thousand years, it's not an issue
of 'nation state' \- if they believe that all that they are is more than some
Federalist, unelected Bureaucracy, then so be it.

Sweden is in many ways more successful than many US states - so then why do
they need a Federation?

Why do certain people think that the tendency towards global governance and
the abolition of states, ethnicity (i.e. actual diversity) is a good thing?

And how do they somehow make it a moral issue?

For about 1000 years the borders of Europe have bounced around but somehow
they almost always end up roughly along ethnic lines.

How many wars were fought over Spanish succession? By French, Habsbourgs etc?
And yet, 'Spain' is pretty much 'Spain' even to this day (yes, an amalgamation
surely, but most of them roughly 'Spanish' at least considerably more so than
they are 'German' or 'French').

It's also a crazy paradox that those usually virtue signalling 'diversity' in
specific locales, are the same one's pushing for policies which tend to break
up and delegitimize ethnic groups, thereby decreasing ethnicity in the world.

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benbreen
I'm an historian of Europe in the 1500-1800 period and I have to say,
respectfully, that your assumptions about the continuity of ethnic identity
are just factually incorrect. As an example, 'Spain' was _not_ just a single
ethno-state in earlier periods - it was a patchwork of different kingdoms with
distinct languages and customs. In fact Spanish identity is not even a single
formation today, as any Galician or Catalan or Basque would be likely to tell
you. And indeed there are many parts of Spain that have more in common with
neighboring regions in France (or Portugal) than with other parts of Spain.
This was the norm up until the 19th century when ethnicity became fetishized.
I can point you to many books and journal articles on this if you're genuinely
interested.

~~~
sgt101
I share your beliefs, the English empires in France, or Norman, Gascon and
Aquitanian empires in Britain, are another example where the borders of today
do not reflect the borders of history. I am less well read than you and would
like to ask you to post some links if you have some.

