ABSTRACT
Many historians and social scientists have thought that nations came into existence only in modern times. If there were nations in earlier historical periods, as some historians and social scientists acknowledge there may have been, they were very few. England, Scotland, France, Japan, and Mexico are but a few examples of what the historian can justifiably recognize as one characteristic of modern times throughout the world: a state-mandated education of all children. However, much history may have contributed to the formation of nations in antiquity and the Middle Ages, that contribution has certainly been more obvious in modern times with mandatory public education and the availability of affordable textbooks. The developments in public education, historiography, and the arts, and the conception that the legitimacy of the state rested upon democratic election are products of modern times.
