Alright, motherfuckers. I have a question. Why do we speak of

>>3185995
The "state" is a relatively new concept, but it's a lens through which we view history.

Even in periods of history where a proper "state' didn't exist, or was weak enough to be disregarded, we still assign the names of states to leaders, such as kings or dukes. For example, if you were to say "in 1337, Edward III claimed to be the rightful heir of the title King of France and went to war with Philip VI over it", you'd be correct. But then if you were to say "in 1337, Edward III claimed the throne of France and thus France and England went to war", you'd also be considered correct. How can this be? Well, the only difference is that "England" and "France", in terms of the way it's worded, cease to be titles and instead become actors. Even if "the Kingdom of England" and "the Kingdom of France" at the time were really just titles held by an individual, in the context of history they are also viewed as actors.

As for why this is, I think there are a few reasons. First of all, there is continuity between these collectives of individuals, and they have defining characteristics - culture, language, etc. So it makes sense to give them a label like "England" or "France" to denote which group of people you're talking about. This is purely for convenience's sake, even if it's not always correct (e.g. Alexander's Macedonia is not the same Macedonia as FYROM, yet both are called Macedonia, yet given context you can easily figure this out)

Another reason is the concept of sovereignty, the idea that there are independent polities that have the right to govern themselves in some way. In a world where this is the case and states are considered "independent", then it makes the most sense to refer to them with definite labels and consider them individual actors, even if they're actually just large groups of people and complex social structures. This is even more true in the west following the Peace of Westphalia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_sovereignty)

>>3185995

Because most people understand 'state' to mean a collective formed by individuals by its very definition you fucking moron.

>why would someone use one word instead of several

is your question

neck yourself

>>3186162
>>3185995
Finally, there is the fact that history is not a perfect recounting of events, or a perfect snapshot of what happened and how. It's more like a story pieced together from (hopefully) various sources, sometimes of varying reliability and relevance. And when telling a story, it is easier for people to understand what's going on if you portray states as individual actors, rather than semi-independent masses of possibly-related groups of significant and/or insignificant people(s) and abstract institutions... Yeah, it's a huge mess. And if historians spent all their time expounding on that mess at every turn, especially in formats like the encyclopedia, then they would quickly run away beyond the scope of what they're meant to be discussing. If I want to tell you about the Hundred Years War in a simple way, I can tell you it was a war between England and France, and that's just fine. It's not the entire picture, it's not a final account, but in and of itself it's accurate. So in that capacity alone, referring to states as individual actors is justified imo.

I also want to add that the concept of states as actors is very important in international relations and much of history is simply an account of international relations over time. It's also an important concept for trade; after all, if a state isn't an individual actor, how can it sign a contract with another state? Would there have to be a referendum on every single treaty signed? The idea that the people transfer sovereignty to the government, who acts on their behalf and also represents the "state", is another reason why labeling states as individual units makes historiographic sense.