by Peter Alter

About the author: Peter Alter is deputy director of the German Historical Institute in London and a professor of modern history at the University of Cologne in Germany.

Nationalism is a political force which has been more important in shaping the history of Europe and the world over the last two centuries than the ideas of freedom and parliamentary democracy or of communism. The roots of modern nationalism are to be found in late eighteenth-century Western Europe and North America, whence it subsequently spread to the whole of Europe and eventually to all parts of the world. Alongside socialism, it was one of the two “main currents of thought of the nineteenth century” (thus the German historian Friedrich Meinecke). In the twentieth century, nationalism has had unparalleled successes, its importance growing by leaps and bounds in Europe directly...