ABSTRACT
The idea of nationhood rose from the secularization of European society beginning with the Renaissance; it achieved its apotheosis in the French Revolution and the French nation-state. The forces of nationalism turned destructively upon themselves and confounded those who had meant to base a just and peaceful order upon the satisfaction of national aspirations. Within the framework of the nation-state, the problems of national minorities proved insoluble—and, in the nature of things, will remain forever insoluble. For the liberal nationalists who, in Europe, manned the barricades of the 1830s and 1840s, and the great liberators of Latin America, "nation" and "humanity" were two sides of the same coin: nationhood was the due of a cultural community democratically governed and mindful of the common interests of mankind. Ever since the middle of the eighteenth century the catch-all net of nationalism has been spreading over the world. It has entangled the collectivist ideologies and choked them in its meshes.
