In the second half of the 17th century, the Catalans saw that the relationship with Spain had failed, and so they rebelled against Philip V; then the… - John Elliott

I think it’s terribly important for the historian to take the alternative point of view to the fashionable one, and present the options.
For instance, the assumption in much of the 19th and 20th centuries was that the centralised nation state was the culmination of a millennium of European history. What we now see as a result of the development of the European Community, of globalisation, of corporate institutions, and transnational corporate institutions, is that the nation state has been put under increasing pressure from above. And at the same time, and partly as a consequence of that, there’s increasing pressure from what you might call the under-represented or suppressed ethnic groups, regions and so on. So we’re getting these pressures on the 19th/20th century nation state both from above and from below.

...As there was a growing pressure to publish, and publish to a deadline – which I think is a disaster, and has been an intellectual disaster...

In this globalized world, there is no such thing as independence.