ABSTRACT
The triumph of nationalism in nineteenth-century Europe is partly attributable to publicists and activists such as Johann Herder in Germany and Giuseppe Mazzini in Italy, who sold the idea of the nation through propaganda and agitation. Nationalism was a tougher sell among East Asians. The establishment of European empires in the non-Western world was the rise of indigenous nationalist movements that eventually made these empires untenable. Successful anticolonial nationalist revolts in the Americas shows that European nationalism was 'contagious' and could not easily are contained within the framework of colonial rule. The Europeans were rarely objects of popular xenophobia. They were few in number, ensconced in fortified enclaves, and largely restricted their activities to trade. One notable exception was Tokugawa Japan's extirpation of Christianity and expulsion of Catholic missionaries in the early 1600s. The French Revolution was Europe's first nationalist revolution and the inspiration for a wave of similar if less bloody upheavals in subsequent decades.
