Teaching the Americans a thing or two.

One of the amazing things that we take for granted is that the world as we know it was not always so and the nation states that are now powerful and project an image of their own superiority, were very much late starters in terms of statehood, never mind the ability to organise and run a state. 

The North European influence which quietly smirks at the untidy relationship between a state and its people, such as Greece and to a slightly lesser extent Italy, should read their history. 

The Romans in their conquering journey across Europe met only primitive tribal people in today's France, Germany and Britain.
The Romans Legions came from a society who had developed and prospered in Italy which, in itself, had lent from an even more magnificent society, Greece.
These nation states of Northern Europe were still in a pre-historical period, without the wit to write. They were to the Romans like the primitive tribes found in Papua New Guinea are to us.
The special gift the Roman had was that they grafted their laws and commerce onto the existing tribal constitution and worked with what they found rather than trying to change it. There was therefore a lot of corroboration which allowed the native to  homogenise with the Roman State, to their mutual benefit.

Those Italians could teach the Americans a thing or two about statehood.