Joseph Ernest Renan : L’essence d’une nation est une plebiscite de tous le jours People and nations, are we talking about the same thing? The use of the two terms is at times interchangeable, sometimes inadvertent ly, but mostly purposefully. “People”, as a group, refers to the political totality of a group individuals living together and share a political destiny. The term encloses all the members of a given political community. The diversity and homogeneity is not a determining factor: the political aims are. The transformation of feudally-controlled regions into a consolidated state between the 16 th and 17 th century was accompanied by the crystallization of a common political identity of the individuals residing in the centralized, modern state, irrespective of the cultural, linguistic, or geographical differences. A nation however transcends the political and economic boundaries of a state and the people. People convert into a nation because they are...