History glossary
Nationalism
the belief that a people with shared identity should have political power, often in their own nation-state.
- Category
- Ideology
What it means
Nationalism can unite people against empires or foreign rule, but it can also fuel exclusion, ethnic conflict, militarism, and claims over territory. It shaped revolutions, unifications, decolonisation, and the breakup of states such as Yugoslavia.
Related terms
Stories using this term
The Holocaust
From legal discrimination to genocide, the Holocaust traces twelve years of escalating persecution that killed six million Jews and millions of others across Nazi-occupied Europe.
Nazi Germany
From Weimar collapse to WWII, Nazi Germany imposed totalitarian rule, expansion, and genocide.
The Anglo Boer Conflict
A war between Britain and Boer republics that exposed imperial costs and reshaped South Africa.
The Cold War
Rivalry between East and West shapes global politics - through proxy wars, propaganda, and nuclear tension.
The Kim Dynasty
North Korea’s Kim dynasty built a nuclear-armed regime, maintaining power through crises and control.
The Korean War
A Cold War conflict that divided Korea, ending in stalemate and a lasting unresolved border.
The Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia fractured through crisis, nationalism, and war, collapsing violently in the 1990s.
The Russian Revolution
From the 1905 crisis to the creation of the USSR, the Russian Revolution transformed imperial collapse into a new one-party socialist state.
