ABSTRACT
The processes of partial social mobilization and of nation-building have been recurrent phenomena in history, at least in certain general characteristics. Such recurrent patterns of integration, like other relative uniformities in history, raise the problem of the comparability or uniqueness of historical events. Indeed, such recurrent patterns offer a background of similarities against which differences can stand out, and against which investigators can evaluate the specific and perhaps unique aspects of each particular case of national or supra-national integration. To the student of contemporary politics, it may further suggest specific problems of research and policy in the ongoing process of social and political integration on the national as well as the international level. Political geographers have sought to identify core areas around which larger states were organized successfully in the course of history. Many emotionally, that is away from their native region or culture, with a far stronger assertion of nationalism and of allegiance to their own language and people.
