During our discussion in week two I struggled with reconciling or understanding the parameters and definitions of ‘nation’ under which transnational history operates under. This weeks reading helped me understand the development of nations and why they exist he way they do, in particular in Sebastian Conrad’s book Globalisation and the Nation in Imperial Germany. Conrad asserts that through their inspiration of the Grande Nation, western Europe transformed itself from a patchwork of minor states into a landscape of nations. The late nineteenth century was an era of worldwide interaction and exchange. It was generally assumed that nations developed into modern nation states, then they would gradually enter into contact with each other, begin to become international, and start to engage in global trade and world politics.
“The family became the clan; a combination of clans become the state and the nations, and finally, the close links between nations developed into intersectionality,’ August Babel asserts. First the nation, then the interconnections: this is called the paradigm of consecutively, a odel of stages of global development. While the readings this week helped me with understanding the place ‘nation’ had in transnational history it is because I understood the creation of nation states. The model that Babel introduces is what was applied to the world, it is a western model. Nations do not and cannot all ‘develop’ or ‘progress’ in a linear and categorical way. It is the same as categorizing countries as ‘first world’ or ‘third world.’ You are making places adhere to a system that they did not create nor ideologically believe in or stand by. Why is one countries idea of development the correct one? Why are we working towards the ‘goal’ of a developed country modeled by the west? What would have happened if these communities had been given voices and autonomy to develop and advance their societies in whichever way they choose to even if its deemed as ‘under developed’ or ‘behind.’
It is my belief that ‘nation’ in transnational history is there to break the ideas and conceptions of what a nation is. Looking at the ebbs and flows between different cultures. Looking at ‘internal nations’ if you will, we can track the ‘development’ and ‘advancement’ of nations outside of the prescribed theories we have been taught and exposed to throughout our academic life.