In this period you have processes such as the creation of a national narrative, a heroic story (often involving, among other things, gathering around a charismatic leader, inventing a semi-mythic past, and sometimes killing off some poor minority that happens to stand in the way and offer a convenient common enemy and/or scapegoat for mounting social and economic problems), spreading literacy, homogenizing language and scrapping local identities, instituting market laws and standardized court systems, getting rid of large parts of corporal punishment, gradually increasing the emotional and
...more
