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“The seeming nation, unified for centuries, was a stew of uncoordinated principalities, towns, villages, 'pseudo-feudal tribal economic units', a sprawl and splatter of vigorous, competent, quarrelsome individualities over which a grid of authority was insecurely and lightly laid. Nothing, I thought, could ever unite Karhide as a nation. Total diffusion of rapid communication devices, which is supposed to bring about nationalism almost inevitably, had not done so.” — Ursula K. Le Guin
The seeming nation, unified for centuries, was a stew of uncoordinated principalities, towns, villages, 'pseudo-feudal tribal economic units', a sprawl and splatter of vigorous, competent, quarrelsome individualities over which a grid of authority was insecurely and lightly laid. Nothing, I thought, could ever unite Karhide as a nation. Total diffusion of rapid communication devices, which is supposed to bring about nationalism almost inevitably, had not done so.