INAROD:
The Growth of the Modern Nation (1772-1945)
In the western democracies, Nationalism has rarely commanded much respect
or sympathy. In the two centuries since the concepts of nationality, of national
sovereignty, and of national liberation first found coherent expression in the
French Revolution, they have spread to all parts of Europe and thence to all cor-
ners of the globe; but they have carried less conviction in the English-speaking
world than in most other areas. In the established political communities of
Britain and America in particular, where democratic institutions have been
solidly based on the consent of the majority for longer than anyone remembers,
there has been no great incentive to question the legitimacy of the state or to
worry unduly about the rights of minorities. Until recently, the separate inter-
ests of the Scots, the Welsh, the English, or even the Irish, aroused little more
than intermittent bouts of irritation amongst the British public, as did those of
the Blacks, the Amerindians, the Chicanos, or the Quebecois in North America.
Supremely confident of the universal benefits of Freedom and Democracy as
enshrined in the Westminster tradition or in the American Constitution, the
leaders of liberal opinion usually saw Nationalism as an unnecessary diversion
from their main purposes, and tended to think of it as inherently illiberal and
undemocratic. In many liberal eyes, 'nations' are selfish, irrational, and disrup-
tive, almost by definition; whilst 'states', whatever their present defects, are all
at least potentially re-formable. Traditional Anglo-American priorities in this
matter were clearly formulated long ago by that doyen of Victorian historians,
Lord Acton. 'A state can sometimes create a nation,' wrote Acton; 'but for a
nation to create a state is going against nature.'^1
This viewpoint, which permeates much historical writing in English, obvi-
ously stands opposed to developments in Eastern Europe, where the growth of
Nationalism, of nations, and of national states, has generated the most
significant changes of the last two hundred years. On the one hand, it refuses to
contemplate the possibility that in certain circumstances dictatorship may enjoy
popular support or that democracies may entertain malevolent or aggressive
designs. In this, it contradicts much practical evidence. On the other hand,
through a characteristic obsession with legal rules and procedures, it places
unwarranted faith in the efficacy of constitutional reforms which may bear lit-
tle relevance, to prevailing social and cultural conditions. Hence, in areas such