No. of Recommendations: 2
Individual people belonged to different People, even back then! The countries that existed back then were very different types of states than those that exist today (the "awesome differences" you mention) - but they were still countries.
As I recall, the first "nations" were what were referred to as "city-states". Athens, Rome, Carthage, Troy, Sparta. Just to name a few. We might not recognize them as nations, per se, but they functioned very much like nations. They were cities that spawned empires, and went to war with each other, etc. Over 2000 years ago. Well before the author's claim of "17th century".
