Nation-building, war experiences, and European models

The evolution of nations and nation-states was linked with experiences of war. ¹ The long process of external and internal state-building was a history of warfare and its revolutionary impacts. Most of the numerous territorial states of the early modern period did not survive this violent restructuring of Europe. Between the last third of the eighteenth century and the end of the nineteenth century the number decreased from about 500 states around 1500 to about 20 around 1900. State-building, so much intensified between 1794 and 1815, was directly linked to the experience of wars, and the British war-state of the eighteenth century is a particular illustration of this fundamental aspect of modern history. ² As a part of this complex process, justifications of war changed, pointing to the new meaning of nation and nation-state as dominant paradigms of political and social legitimacy. ³