The rise of the nation-state and the allure of empire

between nationalism and cosmopolitanism

pp. 183-213

in: Gérard Delanty, Formations of European modernity, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to show how the rise of the modern nation-state contained cosmopolitan possibilities and that both nationalism and cosmopolitanism are not contrary, despite the gradual uncoupling of both. The chapter is concerned with the "long nineteenth century", from 1789 to c.1919. This is the period that falls between the two major movements of social and political crisis in the modern age: the French Revolution and the ending of the First World War. The first section looks at the rise of nationalism and considers the significance of the nation-state; the second section is concerned with the relation between nationalism and cosmopolitanism as two sides of modernity; the third section discusses the nature and limits of the idea of Europe in the context of political modernity and the prevalence of crisis and critique as ways in which the very notion of the political has been experienced. The next section is a discussion of the emergence of a European society. While a European polity as such did not emerge, given the irreversible trend towards a Europe of nations, it is possible to speak of the rise of a European society by the end of the nineteenth century. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of the place and significance of empire in the making of Europe, for Europe was not simply internally constituted, but was formed in encounters with the rest of the world, much of which were through colonization and the accompanying category of race. An assessment of the making of modernity in Europe must take into account that the European route to modernity was to a very considerable extent shaped through colonization.