ABSTRACT
World War II was even more of a nationalist struggle than World War I had been. It was waged from start to finish by national states whose peoples stuck to fighting unless and until they met military disaster and overwhelming defeat. True, the dictatorial, totalitarian type of nationalism, as represented by German Nazis and Italian Fascists, was discredited and done away with, but the succeeding democratic republicanism in Italy and West Germany did not lack nationalist spirit and import. World War II was the decisive factor in the world-wide triumph of nationalism and the accompanying repudiation and overthrow of Western imperialism. On the other hand, tribalism is itself a type of nationalism, however primitive and on however small a scale. It is pertinent to add here that tribal organization and spirit, long divisive of Arab-speaking peoples, have latterly been lessened by an overspreading nationalism.
