Was nationalism an ancient force or a modern invention?
We often assume national identity is an eternal human truth. However, historians suggest that for much of human history, loyalty belonged to lords, religions, or empires—not nations. The idea that a people and their state should be one is a relatively recent, and deeply transformative, political development.
While many mistake nationalism for a permanent feature of human behavior, it is widely considered a modern phenomenon. For the first 15 centuries of the Common Era, the political ideal was often a universal world-state or a religious community, such as the *res publica christiana*. In the Middle Ages, allegiances were typically pledged to feudal lords, city-states, or religious sects rather than a cohesive nation-state (S2:p6). The concept of the nation-state, where the state and the people are congruent, only became a dominant historical force toward the end of the 18th century (S2:p1, S2:p3).
The rise of this ideology was fueled by several converging forces. The American and French Revolutions provided powerful early manifestations of nationalist sentiment (S2:p3). In Europe, the expansion of mass literacy and 'print capitalism' helped create what Benedict Anderson called 'imagende communities' (S1:p9, S1:p12). Furthermore, the Industrial Revolution fostered integrated economies and national public spheres, allowing people to mobilize on a state-wide scale rather than through local provinces or families (S1:p20).
This movement has been a double-edged sword. On one hand, it has driven movements for justice, cultural revivals, and the principle of self-determination (S1:p3). On the other, nationalism has been used to justify racial and religious divisions, suppress minorities, and has been cited as a cause of both World Wars (S1:p3). The 20th century, in particular, saw the distortion of nationalist language by regimes that used the name of 'the people' to abolish political pluralism and enforce rigid, centralized doctrines (S1:p6).
Source: Nationalism
