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Entry: Further Notes on Nationalism Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/further_notes_on_nationalism#23525 Post contents: Dan: While I agree with your historical characterization of the British Isles, I don't know whether it would be an apt comparison for the United States. The major tribes populating the Isles, while having distinct differences, still were quite similar. The average Roman soldier, for example, would often confuse various Celtic and German tribes. In the strict sense, 'nation', from 'nascere', implies link by blood, and it has meant this for thousands of years. Intermarriage can cement various tribes over centuries, as it has done in the Isles, or as it has done in Mexico, where the Mestizo population is now the largest and defining block. To a certain degree, this has occurred in the U.S. among the European population. If you made a DNA composite of your average white American from the Midwest, he would probably be Anglo/Celtic/Germanic. But the U.S. is more diverse than this. If we wish to be descriptive, and describe the U.S. as it is (not as we wish it to be), then perhaps a more suitable analogy for the U.S. would be the Austro-Hungarian Empire. "The U.S. is an empire, or super-state, composed of various nations, of an Anglo-European core, but with minority populations of Africans, Mestizos, Asians, and Native Americans." Of course, on a descriptive level, this definition may be defunct by 2040. Sent at: 2008 11 23