LOUIS_XI_AND_THE_PRINCIPLE_OF_THE_COMMON_GOOD
July 3, 2023, commemorates the 600th anniversary of the birth of King Louis XI of France (1423-1483), founder of the first sovereign nation-state.
American citizens and citizens of the world owe an enormous debt to France’s King Louis XI, who reigned from 1461 to 1483. Louis XI created the first modern nation-state committed to educating its population and raising the living standards of the approximately 95 percent of the population, which, up to Louis’s time, lived a life not much better than the animals they tended. Approximately three hundred years later, the American Republic was established based on same principle of representative self-government.