creating a common language. This allowed the emergence of imagined com-
munities formed by individuals who knew about each other through the
information contained in the printed word (Anderson 1991: ch. 3). Once
this happened it was easy enough for intellectuals to rationalize the logic
behind the political formation of communities and put individuals and their
imagined nation at the centre. Their loyalty to the monarchy was now
subordinated to—and even substituted by—that of the nation. Nationalism
started out life as a political ideology promoted by the intellectual layers of
society, but gained popular acclaim over the nineteenth century, becoming a
mass movement by its close (Heywood 1998). It increasingly came to be seen
as the answer to a growing sense of displacement created by capitalism and
industrialization, which had led to accelerating country-town migration.
These developments also induced a break in the traditional social structures,
which left a gap to beWlled by new ideologies of cohesion (Gellner 1983).
Chapter 2 traces the links between the emergence of the modern state in the
early modern era and the appropriation of antiquity from the Renaissance to
the Reformation,Wrst by the elites and then, by the end of the eighteenth
century, by the nation-state. It will start in Italy, where the origins of the
discourse on the classical civilizations will be discussed, and then examine
the inXuence that this had not only all over Europe, but also in the areas of the
world colonized up to the eighteenth century—mainly America and parts of
Asia. Events taking place in the Enlightenment will require particular atten-
tion, for the belief in reason as a means to systematically organize the world
was underpinned by a novel way of reading the Classics and a new importance
given to their antiquities. Increasingly, the work of the antiquarians was felt
important for the progress of their countries, and there emerged a sense of
group identity which crystallized in their organization in learned societies.
Rationalism also led to the creation of theWrst museums. Private collections
were purchased by the state with a didactic purpose. This is how the British
Museum was formed in 1753 and expanded subsequently, although references
to its value for the British nation would not appear until later, perhaps not
until the 1820s (Miller 1973: 124).
Chapter 3 discusses the eVect that the events which occurred in France at
the end of the eighteenth century had throughout Europe and beyond. It is
then that the birth of nationalism as a political ideology is placed by many
historians. Following the discourse of the past created in the early modern era,
the antiquity most scholars saw as the basis of the nation was still that of
Ancient Greece and Rome. These were perceived as the prototypes of the great
nations and the ancestors of modern civilization. Napoleonic France was
portrayed as a modern Rome, while Ancient Greek and Roman architecture
and arts continued to inspire architects all over the Western world (Salmon
12 Archaeology in the Nineteenth Century