In 1848, French artist Frédéric Sorrieu prepared a series of four prints visualising his dream of a world made up of democratic and social Republics.
The French Revolution of 1789 marked the first clear expression of nationalism, transferring sovereignty from the absolute monarch to French citizens.
Mid-eighteenth-century Europe had no nation-states; it was divided into kingdoms, duchies, and empires (like the diverse Habsburg Empire).
Derived from the Latin root liber (meaning free), liberalism stood for individual freedom and equality before the law.
Following Napoleon's defeat in 1815, European governments embraced conservatism, aiming to preserve traditional institutions like the monarchy, Church, and social hierarchies.
Fear of repression drove liberal-nationalists underground to form secret societies to fight for liberty and establish nation-states.
Romanticism was a cultural movement that criticized reason and science, focusing instead on emotions, intuition, and mystical feelings to shape nationalist sentiments.
The 1830s brought severe economic hardship to Europe due to population growth, rural-to-urban migration, and competition from machine-made British imports.
Parallel to peasant revolts, the educated middle classes demanded constitutionalism and national unification.
Nationalism was mobilized by conservatives to promote state power. Prussia took leadership of German unification.
Italy was politically fragmented into seven states, with only Sardinia-Piedmont ruled by an Italian princely house.
The formation of the British nation-state was a long-drawn-out process rather than a sudden revolution.
Artists in the 18th and 19th centuries personified nations using female allegories (expressing abstract ideas through a person or thing).
By the late 19th century, nationalism transitioned from liberal-democratic idealism into a narrow creed linked with imperialist rivalries.