Nationalism is back, and it’s a good thing

Left-liberals may not like it, but nationalism has been making a comeback almost everywhere. The first phase began with the shrinking of the British and European empires in Asia and Africa. However, as we entered the Cold War, two alternative ideas of internationalism emerged, one led by America and the other by the Soviet Union. Starting with the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the 1980s, Russia’s western periphery and eastern Europe broke up into nationalist states.

It was presumed that as some of these states ceded sovereignty by entering the European Union, a new era of internationalism would emerge. Contrary to expectations, however, we find that at the very heart of the EU — western Europe —