If one looks at a map of the Roman Empire, one thing that stands out is how “Mediterranean” it is, the Romans focused on conquering the Mediterranean and the land around it[…]
An empire spreading form the central crossroad of the Mediterranean, not navigally inclined and before the age of transoceanic ships and navigation anyways, would be one covering the Mediterranean, rather than some random place somewhere completely different? Who could have thought that?
The one exception to this rule is the Roman conquest of Britain, but this is the exception that proves the rule
Someone clearly has not heard of Aquitania, Lugdunensis, Belgica, Norica, Germania Superior and Germania Inferior, Noricum, Pannonia Superior, Moesia Superior, Dacia, Galatia, Amrmenia and Mesopotamia…
When Rome fell into a major crisis and was forced to withdraw from Britain, Germanic barbarians wasted very little time conquering, as the native people there saw little value in remaining Romans[…]
Because it’s not like Germanic successor kingdoms established themselves even in North Italy, which consequently is not named to this day Langobard-Land… oh wait.
The geographical reality that coherent nations must abide by can be viewed in how Dixie and Yankeedom, although both English, came to be distinct nations[…]While the poor soil of New England meant shipping, and later manufacturing, would be a major component of its economy, the far better soil of Dixie meant that agriculture would play a larger part in our economy, and society as a whole[…]
How would the “Dixie” Brits have been able to establish itself at all, seing that it is so different both in location and in agricultural conditions?
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What I gather is that “soil” here stands not even for the notion of a bond between land and people that needs to be made manifest through a pure and irredentist nation-state, but a completely empty cliche that really only seems to serve to affirm an agrarian identity.