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A global perspective on the nature and evolution of nationalism, from the early modern era to the presentThe current rise of nationalism across the globe is a reminder that we are not, after all, living in a borderless world of virtual connectivity. In Nationalism, historian Eric Storm sheds light on contemporary nationalist movements by exploring the global evolution of nationalism, beginning with the rise of the nation-state in the eighteenth century through the revival of nationalist ideas in the present day. Storm traces the emergence of the unitary nation-state—which brought citizenship rights to some while excluding a multitude of "others"—and the pervasive spread of nationalist ideas through politics and culture.Storm shows how nationalism influences the arts and humanities, mapping its dissemination through newspapers, television, and social media. Sports and tourism, too, have helped fashion a world of discrete nations, each with its own character, heroes, and highlights. Nationalism saturates the physical environment, not only in the form of national museums and patriotic statues but also in efforts to preserve cultural heritage, create national parks, invent ethnic dishes and beverages, promote traditional building practices, and cultivate native plants. Nationalism has even been used for selling cars, furniture, and fashion.By tracing these tendencies across countries, Storm shows that nationalism's watershed moments were global. He argues that the rise of new nation-states was largely determined by shifts in the international context, that the relationships between nation-states and their citizens largely developed according to global patterns, and that worldwide intellectual trends influenced the nationalization of both culture and environment. Over the centuries, nationalism has transformed both geopolitics and the everyday life of ordinary people

La arquitectura regionalista fue una moda internacional de la primera mitad del siglo XX que se hizo muy popular en zonas turísticas. Los defensores del regionalismo querían una arquitectura más auténtica, una vida familiar sencilla en contacto con la naturaleza y la adopción de tradiciones artesanales. Esto se podría expresar de una forma nostálgica, exaltando los valores y el patrimonio del campo. Otros propagaban una versión más reformista: higiene moderna, aire y luz, honestidad constructiva e igualdad social. Basándonos en la prensa especializada de la época, analizamos tres tipos de prácticas relacionadas directamente con la arquitectura regionalista: el trabajo, el uso del espacio y la vida cotidiana

The study of national representations at world fairs could provide a strong incentive to the field of nationalism studies, since it enables the construction of national identities to be studied as a global process. This way, it can be shown that the process of national identity construction during the heyday of the world fairs between 1851 and the 1930s demonstrated many converging tendencies.
This introductory article is divided into five sections. First, I will show how national and other territorial identities have been shaped at world fairs during the second half of the nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth century. The second section will provide a brief overview of developments in the field of nationalism studies, where scholars have recently placed more emphasis on transnational and bottom-up approaches, while trying to overcome the dichotomy between nation-states and empires. The third section assesses the contributions on nationalism at world fairs published in this and the previous issue of Studies on National Movements, showing how they already integrate many fresh perspectives. In the fourth part, I argue that more attention should be given to the construction of national identities as a global process, showing that world fairs actually had a strong isomorphic effect, as countries increasingly adopted common elements and templates in order to give shape to their national identities. The final section shows that world fairs reflected the existing international order, developed a common taxonomy to categorize human productivity, created a global conceptual framework, defined the main components of a national identity and created successful templates in order to display them for an international audience. World fairs as a consequence had a lasting and homogenizing effect on national identities around the globe.

AbstractRecent historical studies tend to confirm the antimodernist interpretation, emphasizing the strong premodern roots of nations and nationalism. However, a broad comparative analysis of the rise of the nation‐state during the Age of Revolution shows that earlier notions of nationhood did not have a significant role in the creation of nation‐states in Europe and the Americas. They were not the consequence of a glorious national revolt, but of a clash between the Old Regime and new ideals of political legitimacy. Many of these conflicts led to civil wars and the survival of the nation‐state was mostly determined by the geopolitical constellation. The boundaries of the nation were defined in terms of civilization, whereas language and culture were largely irrelevant. Within these new nation‐states, a universalist nationalization process began. In many instances, citizenship was awarded easier to foreigners than to "uncivilized" inhabitants, while Classical Antiquity was preferred over the national past.

Inspired by Michael Billig's Banal Nationalism, social scientists have begun to study the impact of nationalism on everyday life. However, Billig's concept is far from clear. Actually, banal can refer to 'mundane' expressions of nationalism, to their 'unconscious' consumption or their 'cold' temperature. Moreover, on many occasions Billig referred to the state instead of the nation, thus in fact analysing 'banal statism'. For historians it is often difficult to ascertain whether people consciously perceived certain expressions of nationalism or not. However, we can analyze when certain mundane forms of nationalism were invented, while looking for clues as to how they cooled down and slowly became taken for granted. In this article, I will analyze how the nationalization of the domestic sphere manifested itself in Spain. In fact, this transnational trend has been largely ignored by architectural historians and scholars dealing with gender, food, design and animal–human relations, because they primarily focused on processes of modernization. In this way, the intensification of the nation-building process, which now also actively implies housewives, has remained largely invisible. Using evidence from a broad array of books, lectures and magazines, I will show that during the belle époque – when Spanish nationalism was quite hot – all kinds of spaces, objects and practices associated with the private sphere and the home were consciously nationalized by writers, architects and cooks. The focus will be on the nationalization of domestic architecture, food and dishes, but I will also pay attention to the nationalization of furniture, pets, gardening and cleaning. There are clear indications that over time many new national forms, objects and spaces slowly became banal stereotypes, thus further naturalizing existing national identities.

Nationalism studies does not seem to be a very innovative field of research. The path-breaking views of Anderson, Gellner and Hobsbawm – all published in 1983 – still form the starting point for almost all existing investigations. Moreover, most recent studies focus on one national case, which implicitly results in a vast collection of 'unique' trajectories. However, over the last few years a number of highly original studies on the origins of nationalism, nation-state formation, banal nationalism, methodological nationalism and nation-building in a global perspective seem to announce a new dawn. Some of these refreshing interpretations – which will be discussed in this article – clearly demonstrate that historiographical nationalism still has a preponderant role in history writing. In the concluding paragraphs I will emphasize the need to overcome not only methodological nationalism, but also the terminological and normative nationalism that still dominates our discipline.

AbstractBanal forms of nationalism permeate our everyday life. However, it is not very clear when all kinds of banal objects and practices became nationalised. In this article, I focus on the domestic sphere by analysing how around 1900 a small group of activists began to propagate the nationalisation of domestic architecture, decorative arts and even gardening. Domestic practices such as cooking, cleaning and consuming were nationalised at about the same time, at least in Western Europe. Although in the beginning the nationalisation of the domestic sphere was perceived as something new, within a few decades the existence of national cuisines and architectural styles was taken for granted. As a consequence, it becomes clear that the nationalisation of the domestic sphere constituted a new and very successful phase in the nation‐building process, which now also began to affect quotidian practices and objects in the private realm.

AbstractMethodological nationalism is still dominant in nationalism studies. When studying the construction of national identities, scholars generally limit their study to the borders of one nation‐state, while only paying attention to members of that particular nation. Implicitly, foreign actors and influences are left out of the picture. I will challenge this methodological nationalism with a case study, which demonstrates that the place ofToledo within theSpanish national imagination, and more particularly that ofEl Greco, the most important representative of the city's artistic heritage, was largely determined by foreigners. During the nineteenth century,El Greco was rediscovered primarily by foreign scholars and artists. Moreover, it would be the rise of international tourism in the early twentieth century that convincedToledans to adoptEl Greco as the city's main artistic icon. This case, thus, clearly shows that in nationalism studies methodological nationalism can be avoided by also including foreign actors.