ABSTRACT
For two centuries the nationstate has been a most important phenomenon in European history: many a chapter of this history deals with the making of the different nationstates, deals with their confrontations and with their coalitions. Quite recently the social tensions and the political disturbances resulting from the collapse of communist power in middle and Eastern Europe, and the unification of Germany, seem to have enhanced the importance of the nationstate as a form of political organization and as a concept of political analysis.
