ABSTRACT
Narrating the history of the state during the interwar period is crucial to understanding the development of modern international order. In support of this claim, the chapter makes two main arguments. First, if the interwar period was marked by considerable continuities in the forms of statehood that emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was also a pivotal period in the emergence of core features of the state that are still with us today, particularly its association with nationalism, “modernization,” and development. Second, the interwar period saw the establishment of projects intended to accelerate the formation of the modern state outside the “core” of the international system, especially in the “semi-periphery.” In this way, the interwar years, and the forms of statehood it harnessed, nurtured, and challenged, retain a considerable hold over contemporary world politics.
