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the mostly arbitrary process of drawing lines on a map during
t he 19t h c ent u r y, a s Eu rope c a r ved up t he c ont i nent on it s term s,
regardless of the region’s religious and ethnic composition. The
endemic problems faced in Africa, from famine to corruption,
civil wars and genocide in countries such as Rwanda, suggest
that the sudden and cosmetic adoption of national self-determi-
nation does not work. However, such is the power of the philos-
ophy of the nation state that few regions have come up with a
different way of organising their political and cultural identity.
It is hard to assess the future of the nation, not least be-
cause we are still digesting the impact of the last great period of
national independence that followed the collapse of the Soviet
Union after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The subsequent
creation of a plethora of new nation states in eastern Europe,Contradictory aspirations
at the heart of national
self-determination easily
tip over into warfare, ethnic
cleansing, even genocide
Jerry Brotton is professor of Renaissance studies at Queen Mary
University of London, and author of A History of the World in Twelve
Maps (Allen Lane, 2012)especially in the former Yugoslavia, led to renewed violence,
epitomised in the horrors of the Kosovan war (1998–99). To-
day, the initial aspirations of 19th-century national autonomy
built on openness appear to have evaporated, replaced instead
by an intolerant demand for ethnic and religious exclusivity.
The darkest version of this flavour of nationalism is encapsu-
lated in Czech historian Miroslav Hroch’s argument that it is
based on a belief that “when society fails, the nation [ethnic
group] appears as the ultimate guarantee”.
Today, though – after decades of globalisation inspired by
multinational organisations pursuing autonomous online tech-
nology, the deregulation of legal and financial systems and the
unimpeded flow of capital, with little or no concern for national
sovereignty – we may now be witnessing the beginning of the
slow demise of the nation state. By 2017, an estimated 94% or
US$250 billion of Apple’s cash reserves – more than the com-
bined foreign reserves of the British government – were held off-
shore, highlighting a real danger that multinational companies
can exert greater power over political life than nation states.
In the span of human history, the nation is still a relatively
new invention. Whether it is one worth fighting for remains
to be seen.Post-independence tensions Rwandan children in a refugee
camp in 1994, during the bloody civil war. In the 20th century, most newly
independent African countries inherited territories defined arbitrarily by
colonial administrations, leading to ethnic and religious tensions