ABSTRACT
Nationalism is evidently an international phenomenon. This shows expressly in the ideology of nationalism, which declares that all nations have the right to their own nation-state. Nationalism looks forward to a new international order, a world of nation-states. That is why early advocates of nationalism, such as Mazzini, were convinced and committed internationalists. Nationhood was a stepping stone, necessary but by itself incomplete, towards the embrace of all humanity. ‘In laboring according to true principles for our Country’, declared Mazzini, ‘we are laboring for Humanity; our Country is the fulcrum of the lever which we have to wield for the common good’ (Mazzini 1907: 54–55; see also Bayly and Biagini 2008). Mazzini aspired to a world linked by acceptance of the universal principle of nationalism, a world in which nations – however small – would deal with each other on equal terms, and would recognize each other’s right to existence. Nationalism could not apply simply to one nation, or any set of nations, seen in isolation. It was a univer salist ideology, as universalist as the cosmopolitan ideologies of the Enlightenment.
