Apart from most of them if not all being fluent in French, sharing similar life styles and being more or less all related to each other there is quite a bit more they shared.

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""Even though our unity is our strength, our diversity remains our wealth,""
Herman Van Rompuy

The whole European history is full of pan European developments. That each realm or duchy or nation created a for itself typical variation does not contradict this. European realms have been connected not only by culture, science, religion, ruling houses (who were by large closely related to each other) but also by trade.

It was largely not before the rise of nationalism that as much as possibly independent national histories and cultures were constructed. The movement of romanticism was especially productive in this regard. And guess what, even romanticism was a European phenomene.

Whats artificial now?

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""Even though our unity is our strength, our diversity remains our wealth,""
Herman Van Rompuy

To believe that a few American army bases in Europe could have prevented yet another "European civil war" if it had been in the making is pretty naive. If you can credit something it was the fear of being invaded by the Soviet Union and therefore feeling the need to get over old conflicts because only if Western Europe stood together AND cooperated with the US it saw a chance of withstanding the east block.

As the east block collapsed 20 years ago already and the hell did still not break loose, one can see that the EU indeed makes a difference. Unless you still insist that just because you have a number of army bases in Europe would make any hostile relations within Europe impossible.

There are numerous divisions across Europe, but they are all chaotically intermixed and don't form single blocks. Even if the comparision is far from perfect, you could compare Europe to ancient Greece. Ancient Greece was also constantly entangled in internal wars. Still all theses tiny states shared a lot with each other.

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""Even though our unity is our strength, our diversity remains our wealth,""
Herman Van Rompuy

what?

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I am a liberal, a classical liberal. Classical liberalism is liberalism, but the current collectivists have captured that designation in the United States. In Europe they are glad enough to call themselves socialists. But no one in America wants to be called socialist and admit what they are.

Courage, Truth, Honor, Fidelity, Discipline, Hospitality, Industriousness, Self-Reliance, Perseverance

I have said that there are certain exceptions. However I believe there are more differences than you are willing to look at and many of the connections you laid out are artificial, man made connections. Those national histories and cultures you speak of existed long before the rise of nationalism. However, the political atmosphere was not condusive to those peoples forming nations based on common heritage, culture, and histories.

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I am a liberal, a classical liberal. Classical liberalism is liberalism, but the current collectivists have captured that designation in the United States. In Europe they are glad enough to call themselves socialists. But no one in America wants to be called socialist and admit what they are.

Courage, Truth, Honor, Fidelity, Discipline, Hospitality, Industriousness, Self-Reliance, Perseverance

Your problem is that you seem to see the nation as the natural and one and only frame of reference. The very Westphalian states concept is not that age old either. And guess what, its also a "European concept".

National histories, myths, points of identification vary, some needed more artificial back up, others less. It does not change the point that before nationalism swept over Europe, that the whole situation looked quite different. If there were "true" identities they were tribal, or feudal at best. You see it very beautifully when you look at France and Spain. The language change was once gradual. There was no sudden language border. You see the remains of that fact even today. Of course there were languages sprinkled around that had nothing to do with the rest, but as I have said on feudal dimensions. There was a abrupt languages rift however, but it was one between social classes. The aristocracy shared the language for a long time not with the people they ruled, but with the the others across Europe. The same for the scientific community, in most parts of Europe it had only one: Latin. (Orthodox Europe had old Greek) The attempt to talk away the strong interconnection between the monasteries and afterwards of the universities all over Europe is a ridicule one.

The modern age, a category which in itself is a European concept, was to a considerable extend the consequence of new old knowledge gained in Spain during the Reconquista, by not burning down the Muslim libraries and centres of knowledge and education but the contrary, by employing Muslims together with the own thinkers to access that knowledge. The result was nothing less than that long lost wisdom from the ancient age found its way home to Europe again and it took not too long to spread all over Europe again. The age of Renaissance appeared in different realms it took place faster or slower but thats not the point here. The following age of colonization actually formed the first time the concept of Europe as such, because before, Europe was just all of the well known world. ...

In the time to come with the rise of nationalism what happened? Different things took place, in some parts, tribal identities (and even they were not "pure") were bloated up to national sizes while others got extincted. In other cases, the nation was a deliberate fusion of various local identities, it was a somehow the average of all the various realms. In yet other cases, one tribe was forced out of their home region and spread over an entire area and their features became important uniting symbols as well, as many regions adopted them afterwards...

There are loads of examples. They all have in common that there is little natural and predetermined about most modern European nations. They did not simply unfold, they were constructed based on exaggerating similarities within and differences to those outside.

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""Even though our unity is our strength, our diversity remains our wealth,""
Herman Van Rompuy

You don't have to answer if you don't undertand what I say. Just do not understand it. That's okay.

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Scientia et potentia humana in idem coincidunt, quia ignoratio causae destituit effectum
Sir Francis Bacon

On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1Etruh7Ch8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5JkHBC5lDs

what?

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I am a liberal, a classical liberal. Classical liberalism is liberalism, but the current collectivists have captured that designation in the United States. In Europe they are glad enough to call themselves socialists. But no one in America wants to be called socialist and admit what they are.

Courage, Truth, Honor, Fidelity, Discipline, Hospitality, Industriousness, Self-Reliance, Perseverance

I know what a "Thor mit einem Hammer" means, so I'm not really astonished about your dumb irrealienism.

YouTube - hippo and dog

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Scientia et potentia humana in idem coincidunt, quia ignoratio causae destituit effectum
Sir Francis Bacon

On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1Etruh7Ch8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5JkHBC5lDs

the who in the what now?

__________________
I am a liberal, a classical liberal. Classical liberalism is liberalism, but the current collectivists have captured that designation in the United States. In Europe they are glad enough to call themselves socialists. But no one in America wants to be called socialist and admit what they are.

Courage, Truth, Honor, Fidelity, Discipline, Hospitality, Industriousness, Self-Reliance, Perseverance

The formation of a common European identity doesn't seem all that different, IMO, from the formation of national identities in individual European states in the past. The identities are both producers and products of new political organizations; while states did not have to entirely invent distinct national identities, they certainly cultivated and encouraged them, and the cycle fed itself. Similarly, the new 'supranational' union does not have to entirely invent a European identity, but rather encourage it, and that identity can in turn promote the integration of the union. I haven't studied in much depth the creation of some of the European nations, but I do see the point that a European Union has many more internal differences to overcome than did any single national state. It's certainly the political experiment of the century, IMO. Just as Europe exported to the world the example of the nation-state, perhaps she'll give the world another new organization to revolutionize international affairs. Other regions around the world are apparently looking; I've seen the EU cited in efforts to integrate South America, Central Asia, Africa, Southeast Asia, and even here in North America.

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No man is an island...
Each man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in Mankind.
And therefore, never send to know
For whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
—John Donne

Thanks a lot, Slarti.

Always enjoy reading your posts.
Contrary to some here, you do know what you´re writing about.

With the "some" I an not referring to people from outside Europe.
Quite the contrary. I do like the inquisitive posters, like f.i.Thor, I´m sure, with his interest in our world he appreciates your posts too.

I´m sure, a couple of evenings in Grinzing talking with you would broaden my views as well.

Thanks again.

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"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse
of a boom brought about by credit (debt) expansion.
The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner
as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit (debt) expansion,
or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved." - Ludwig von Mises

Thats too much of a compliment. I am just a layman with an opinion, with only vague and limited knowledge of the academic point of views. Also Thor has an equavily justified opinion, often enough we are looking at the same thing just from different angles.

I'd actually prefer a Kaffeehaus over a Heurigen for that purpose you suggested

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""Even though our unity is our strength, our diversity remains our wealth,""
Herman Van Rompuy

Interesting imperial view from a not existing future to a not existing presence. Whatever someone likes to take from Europe - he should take the right and not the wrong.

Today maybe the self fullfilling prophecies of Vaclav Klaus are killing the future way of Europe and the Klaus-Czechia will weaken Europe and will force Germany and Russia in a greater 'private' cooperation with a less multinational view on the world. In this case I would not be able to see what the future of Czechia could be. Fortunatelly Czechia is a very thankful nation and because Germany helped Czechia a lot in the last few hundred or thousand years they murdered and expatriated most Germans - and called this "justice". And because Germany helped Czechia a lot in the European Union it said in the sculpture Entropa: "Thank you Germany for your help. You are a funny Swastika-Highway-Nazi-nation!"

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Scientia et potentia humana in idem coincidunt, quia ignoratio causae destituit effectum
Sir Francis Bacon

On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1Etruh7Ch8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5JkHBC5lDs

^^ Maybe thats a psychologic test? I see a Brezel, you seem to see a Swastika. What does this tell us?
Maybe I should get something to eat...

__________________
""Even though our unity is our strength, our diversity remains our wealth,""
Herman Van Rompuy