Arnold Kling has a fascinating article over at TCS Daily about the rise of nationhood in northwestern Europe (mostly England and the Netherlands). Citing the research of Meir Kohn, Kling notes that government in the Anglosphere and in the Netherlands grew from the bottom up from the web of smaller, voluntary associations (guilds, churches, learned societies, and the like). Kling constrats this bottom-up associational state against the top-down imperial state that developed in places like Spain and France. Meir Kohn's research is intriguing and it's great that he's posting his chapters online -- over time I plan to read everything he's posted and perhaps even provide some comments...