Gurminder Bhambra's Annual Lecture points the way to aparadigm shift in how the social sciences should approachthe nation-state,both historically and in our own times.That is to say, perceiving of Britain historically as a nation-stateor as an imperial state will make all the difference;and, as Bhambra demonstrates, it is precisely the failureto grasp the imperial fact that prevents us from grasping‘the shared histories that have configured our present’.This article reflects on the crucial imperial fact outlined byBhambra, and it applies its radical consequences for ourapproach to the broader Western European scene andthe world at large in the postwar period. Our contemporarynation-statesystem, it is argued, is not the inventionof Westphalia and European objectives, but rather theproduct of decolonization and thus a reaction and alternativeto the European designs for the modern world order,in general, and the postwar order, in particular. In relationto this, the article also explains how Bhambra's work helpsestablish a historically informed critique of methodologicalnationalism, as opposed to the many misconceptionsperpetuated by our current theoretical consensus of what‘methodological nationalism’ entails.