National identity

(nation, nationalism, nationalities, nationality, nations)

National identity can be best understood in the context of two phenomena. One of these contexts is the emergence of nations; the other is the need on the part of most people to belong to a community. The emergence of nations is significant because it often meant that groups of people with little in common were contained within particular national borders. Most people's need to belong is significant because identifying with a nation can satisfy this need.

While most of us are so used to living in a nation that we can't imagine living any other way, nations have not always existed. Some people argue that the idea of boundaries necessary for the emergence of nations first emerged with the Peace of Westphalia, and this seems as good a place to start this discussion as any other does. The Peace of Westphalia involved a series of treaties between the King of France and his allies and the Holy Roman Emperor and his allies in 1648. The Peace of Westphalia marked the end of the Thirty Years' War, and the Peace of Westphalia is sometimes referred to as the Peace of Exhaustion.

The crucial point to note about these treaties is that they involved the drawing up of maps to identify which territory belonged to which monarch. This is important because it meant that the territories created by these treaties were artificial impositions that did not always reflect what people wanted or thought about themselves.