Kohn's numerical sub-headings are great milestones along the path of his arguments and examples, but naming them would've made them more helpful. As he gets further into the place of nationalism in the Renaissance and Reformation, each of these subsections focuses on a different nation. So far transitional conclusions and descriptive introductions have made each subject clear, but replacing the numbers with names would make for a smoother reading experience.
Not that Kohn's writing is anything but smooth. Although most of this chapter has been summaries of what happened in the regions of Europe that would later become its major nations, the book still reads like a reported story rather than an enumeration of events with causes and effects clearly outlined. It makes for some entertaining reading.
It's also the sort of stuff that further fuels my other projects.
For the Beowulf project Kohn keeps mentioning the conditions in which nationalism thrives and the elements that constitute it. Kohn also seems to have overlooked the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as a piece of writing in a mundane language specifically designed to unify a disparate people. I know that this function of the Chronicle has been written on before, but being reminded of it in this capacity has given me another piece of evidence to argue that the early medieval Anglo-Saxons were actually trying to create a national unity. A unity that consumed what was left of the British Celts.
On the less academic side, reading about Castile being isolated within its mountains got me wondering about world building through storytelling. Specifically if it could be possible to achieve the effect of a gradually widening world found in the great RPGs in a series of books.
The big question I'm left with is which one of these matters will be the first to prove useful.
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