this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
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While the US is pretty old as a state, most societies have a direct continuation from one state to the next. It's not like when France overthrew its monarchy they stopped being France or seeing themselves as French. So they may see their continuous history as much older than the current state, with the Kingdom of France going back to 987.
The US doesn't have a continuous history prior to 1776 because they mostly come from Britain but they denounce their British heritage and they settled in NA but also denounce the heritage of the local peoples there. So the average American sees their entire history as starting at 1776, maybe a little bit further back to include the initial colonies and that's about it.
I am sorry, but walking property of French feudals wasn't part of French nation.
That aside, kingly blood from year 987 has, due to arithmetics of human procreation, gotten into most people from European countries by now. So technically a modern Frenchman can associate with a king of France from 1000 years ago, if they want that. Just doesn't make much sense.
XIX century romanticism is the problem. Everyone has learned of their nation's long and mythologized history because of that. Everyone believes that, which to an extent makes that real. Sibelius' music, Goethe's poetry, Vasnetsov's paintings, whatever. Strong aesthetic and symbolic. While German national-socialists kinda made too much of this distasteful, they've also made new things that came before them seem old and good. And by comparison more real.
If we do direct continuations, the US can do that with England.