This is a good video from Tom Nicholas about the concept of countries and how it developed. In a world with voices calling for extreme nationalism seemingly on the rise, it is worth keeping in mind that they’re just something we made up.
I think it is helpful to replace the somewhat vague word “country” with the slightly more technical term “nation-state”. For, the phrase “nation-state”, in all its hyphenated goodness, helps to articulate the manner in which what we often think of as a singular phenomenon – a country – is usually actually comprised of two separate phenomena.
Tom Nicholas
How Countries Were INVENTED (Tom Nicholas)
Scott Boehmer 