ABSTRACT

A comparative overview of some of the nation-states formed in the wake of the First World War suggests that the attainment of national independence constituted a risk-laden transition into an unfamiliar political landscape, an exciting and treacherous new terrain that shimmered with utopian mirages while quicksand lurked underfoot. The societies that ventured forth into the Promised Land of national self-determination were divided by different expectations of where its borders would lie, how it should be cultivated, and who was entitled to partake of its fruits. The sense of disappointment in the reality of the nation-state was all the deeper for the majesty of the dreams that had first animated the liberation movements. The irony we are left with is that the First World War led directly to the enthronement of national self-determination as the sovereign principle of the international system, while at the same time sowing the seeds of failure for the new political orders founded on that principle.