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Well, in the mid 19th century it was essentially a liberal movement...
As you know, that didn't last long--and it was always a strange way of being 'inspired' by the French Revolution in any case. In Germany, he idea was to replace aristocratically-led government by government legitimated by national 'belonging', but this movement resulted in Wilhelm I. being crowned Emperor of the extremely nationalist 'small German' empire (without Austria, as the Austrian Emperor refused to submit to the much more powerful King of Prussia). This coincided with the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine in the name of extending German nationalist influence, ultimately the First World War, and in turn the Second. Plenty of other examples apart from Germany, of course, e.g. in Turkey--the Armenian genocide, the catastrophe of Smyrna, and so on.
And in the mid-20th, for that matter, in the context of post-colonialism
Leading to predominantly crackpot dictatorships within artificial colonial continuity boundaries, trying to impose 'nationality' on all sorts of people with very different identities.
Great for divide-and-rule, starting wars, and killing people. Rubbish for everything else.
(Obviously I know that you were just trying to give counter-examples to what Fox said.)
Oliver Schick-
Rubbish for everything else.
I know it was an accident of history, but nationalism (in the sense of self determination) had a large part in undoing pretty much all the large european empires (Ottoman, British, French, Hapsburg, Russian (twice)...)
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Leading to predominantly crackpot dictatorships within artificial colonial continuity boundaries, trying to impose 'nationality' on all sorts of people with very different identities.
It's quite possible that I don't understand what nationalism means, but the gathering of popular support around the idea of a 'national' identity and the idea of self-determination in particular was important for huge numbers of people around the world in the mid-20th century. Your analysis seems incredibly dismissive.
I'm agreeing with @fizzy.bleach and not really adding anything except taking it a bit more personally. The governing regimes that have followed colonialism have been varied and none perfect but I would place the large part of the blame of problematic boundaries on the legacy of colonialism and power meddling rather than the desire of ordinary people not to be ruled and dominated by a foreign empire. In many countries "divide-and-rule and killing people" are associated as the mechanisms of colonial invasion, not nationalism. It depends where you're looking from.
fizzy.bleach
hoefla
Well, in the mid 19th century it was essentially a liberal movement...