ABSTRACT
Nationalism, once declared an obsolete force, especially after World War II and the establishment of the European Union, has obviously returned with renewed vigour. This chapter explains passionate nationalist movements everywhere, in Africa, South America, the Middle East, Southern Europe, and in the successor states of the former Soviet Union. It discusses salient concepts such as nationalism and, inasmuch as they relate to it, also transnationalism, post-nationalism and cosmopolitanism. Modern nationalism originated in Europe in the period following the French Revolution, as a result of the emergence of industrial society and the establishment of the nation-state as the primary principle of social organisation. Nationalism and nationhood are thus regarded as projects of modernity, related to the centralising tendency towards the homogenisation of populations, thus defining modern statehood. The discourse of sameness, for example, emphasises national uniqueness and inward sameness, ignoring differences within. The discourse of difference, by contrast, emphasises the strongest differences to other nations.
