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irony of the mid-19th century

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while naturalists such as Darwin were emphasizing the commonness of human kind

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societies were going about creating national identities which separated us from each other

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claimed that there were some fundamental differences between members of different nations

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these differences increasing took on the language of race

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it's was difficult to separate out the language of race from the language of nationalism

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new icons of political authority

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Napoleon

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emerged as the great figure for 19th century nation builders

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for Muhammad Ali Pasha in Egypt

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for the Greeks

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for the Mughal authority in India

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for Bolivar in South America

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we have to build a state, which can generation a nation

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didn't believe necessary in these essential differences between races

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argue that these identities are the constructions of state power, they don't construct state power

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rather it is the ability of state powers to be deployed to create national identities

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rejecting the notion that argues that national identities are rooted in differences between peoples

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wanted to make societies out of populations that were mixed races, mixed religions, and mixed peoples

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others believe that nations came first, then the state

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German and Italian nationals would use language of race to justify entities such as Germany and Italy

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national identities emerge and from these these identities we get new institutions and we call them sates

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that national differences beleived to be rooted in some primordial difference between peoples

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looking to Napolean's assertive nation building

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national building by state formation

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national builders used scientific discoveries to explain differences between peoples

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explained that nations therefore need to protect and husband these races in the name of the nation

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challenge for nation building

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a sense of common, homogenous communities to replace what was once called empires

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moving from the multiple entities of empires to single identities

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from local identities to national identities

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national building needed three conditions

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1. the power of the state

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military power

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public education systems

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propagate new concepts of civic ideas

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birth of new national histories

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create an image of a shared past

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based on a collective experience

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state education

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the vote became a very important civic exercise on the part of members of these nation states to cast ballots proclaiming their secular faith in these new models of national authority, to give legitimacy to these new regimes called nation states

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2. the power of communication

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disseminating visions of state authority and national power among the communities in the country

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images were important throughout this century for creating national identity

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newspapers, magazines, and radio

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instruments for creating identify

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press revolution and the spread of the market place for the consumption of images

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authors writing on these topics begin to make money by being writers

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early examples were Encyclopédie and Wealth of Nations

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create horizontal comradeship of fellow readers reading the national news to create and spread the idea of the nation

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3. the power of transportation

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steam, canals, railroads function importantly as instruments to connect up parts of societies which were previously disarticulated from each other

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one could move from town to town, village to village with much more facility

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railroads integrated societies into national market places

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these three factors integrated the spacial parts of something new, something called a nation