It seems so obvious to us now, but how would anyone have known thousands of years ago?

In the introduction to Anderson's most famous work he descriebes three paratoxes which have perplexed those who work in the area of nations and nationalism for a long time. The first he notes is "The objective modernity of nations to the historians' eye vs. their subjective antiquity in the eyes of nationalists."

Now, of course the Nation-State is a modern beast, but what is he refering to when he says the different entity, the just-nation, is modern in the eyes of historians and ancient in the eyes of nationalists?
The Declaration of Arbroath seems to make reference to a Scottish Nation ^{distinct from the Gaelic race shared with Ireland, as is refered to in Bruce's letter, iirc, 5 years prior}.
I am less well read in the history of Japan, but can we not see a Nation in japan long before the modernist "state" emerges? Similar in parts of china?

Any insights here would be useful, because whilst I am broadly persuaded by Anderson's argument, this has long confused me. :)

All 3 disputed date have Jan 8th, with 1982, 1983, 1984 for N.Korea, S.Korea, and USA respectively. Why would they change the birthday, and assuming the 1982 one is falsified, why would Jan 8th be coherent?

During the tetrarchy the Augusti were higher in order than the Caesars, why didn't they also use the title Augustus but instead Caesar?

Before we understood atomic fusion energy, how did scientists explain how stars burned? Was it considered unexplained or did they just assume it was burning some sort of charcoal-like fuel?

I'm more curious about more modern (18th - 20th century) theories rather than older theories.

DISCLAIMER: I have no desire to get rid of the Grundgesetz/act on article 146, as it's a mostly fine law, as far as constitutions go, and I also think Germany is clearly a sovereign state, not a puppet or serf to the U.S. or whatever. But a growing subculture here seem to buy into that stuff, which worries me, mostly because I'm scared to find out what bothers them so much about the Grundgesetz that they would rather overthrow it in its entirety than continually reform it. I think Article 146 is a neat little quirk.

Article 146 states that the Grundgesetz becomes void, if and when the reunified Germany freely chooses a constitution for itself. Germany has been reunified, and obviously a new constitution has not been established, so clearly the Grundgesetz is still binding.

However, as far as I know, the term "Grundgesetz" was chosen explicitly because it was intended as a temporary law, a "true" constitution would only be enacted if and when the GDR states were to reunite with West Germany, such that all Germans could be represented in the process of establishing a "real" post-war constitution. Hence the existence of Article 146.

Wikipedia flatly states that, at the moment of reunification, the Grundgesetz became the constitution for all of Germany. Clearly, this is legally true, but the change from using the word "Grundgesetz" to the word "Verfassung" suggests that the planned inclusion of the eastern states (and the German people in general, since the Grundgesetz did come into existence at the - quite reasonable - behest and under direction of the Allies) in the writing of the constitution had taken place, which, to date, it has not. (EDIT: Though I guess one could argue that the willful integration of the GDR into the Federal Republic implies consent to the Grundgesetz, meaning article 146 has de facto run its course.)

Why not? Or perhaps rather: Why would the Grundgesetz ever have been intended as a temporary placeholder? It's obviously much more efficient to keep going with an established constitution, so why even put that language in? It's not like Germany didn't have some outside imposition coming to them after the war.

I have acquiantances who believe that this failure to trigger article 146 and write a constitution "ourselves" (whatever that would even mean in practical terms) is a sign of continuing serfdom of Germany to the Allies. I think this is, at best, an overly dramatic take on what's actually the case, but they have at least gotten me curious to learn why the Grundgesetz is the way it is. It's too murky a subject for me to figure out a good answer; I tried.

So, why has Germany never acted in either direction on Article 146?

With all the discussion lately about sinister Russian influence on the US elections I was reading about past such campaigns on Quora. And I came across the claim that the anti-nuclear campaigns and peace movement of the cold war were heavily influenced by secret Soviet influence. I even came across a claim that, "In the 1970s and 1980s the “peace movement” in Europe was the most massive channel of our [Soviet] influence, especially after many left-wingers turned their backs on us after Czechoslovakia ’68."

Would you say this is a fair statement?

From what I understand, up until the late 1980s, Nationalist China was planning to one day retake the mainland, which was why the suspended the constitution, kept the country in a state of permanent martial law, etc. The Great Leap Forward was a period of great chaos in Communist China, which (in my incredibly uneducated opinion) provided the closest thing to an opportunity Nationalist China had to retake mainland China. What exactly was Nationalist China doing during this period? Were they trying to gain military support from other nations for a hypothetical attack? Or by that point did they realize that they had no real hope of retaking the mainland? If they did realize that retaking the mainland was impossible, then why didn't they end martial law until the 1980s?

If you're an educated person, you'd know that the republican party in the United States was formed as an anti-slavery party. Nowadays you see people claiming the Republicans were the supposed racist southeners of the civil war, but that obviously isn't true. When exactly did people make that switch? What or who caused it and why?

What the title says. I'm from Serbia, but I couldn't find any info on the title question.

Thanks.

Isn’t it hard to get a NBI/police clearance if most of you have the same name?

You can often see claims on the Internet that living standard (literacy rate, child mortality, life expectancy) on Tibet improved drastically following Chinese return there in the 1950s. Is this true, and how much credit does China get to claim for this?

I am having trouble finding a good book on the history of the CIA, because of how secretive, but more importantly, how controversial an organization it is. And, as a rule, the more controversial something is, I've found it's harder to find good readable history on it. Can anyone suggest a book about them that's well respected by historians?

Bonus Question: When did the mention of 'dragons' begin to appear in Europe?

Okay, so the Ottoman empire is named after its founder, Osman the First. In Turkish, this makes more sense, with the empire being calledʿOsmānīye and the founder being, well, Osman. Osman, the founder of Osman's Empire. However, in English, we change the name of the empire to Ottoman, but the founder is still known as Osman. Wouldn't it make more sense to either moderately anglicize the empire's name to keep the connection obvious (Osmaniye and Osman) or to alter both their names to keep the connection obvious? (Ottoman the First, founder of the Ottoman Empire.)

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