NATION, STATE AND CULTURE: FOR A POLITICAL AND SOCIAL HISTORY OF CULTURAL HOMOGENIZATION

Expanding on the concept of "nationalization of the masses", the article explores the processes of cultural homogenization as a recurrent pattern in the formation and expansion of the European "nation state" until after World War II. It argues that such practices could not be systematically conceived before the French Revolution and the ensuing wars. In fact, large-scale homogenization was hardly practicable before the Twentieth century, mostly due to the lesser bureaucratic control and the lack of adequate military technology. With Paris as its global epicentre, the process radially spread eastward through waves of progressive Westernization. While identifying nationalism as the dominant identity of the modern era, the article illustrates with a wealth of examples its recurrent overlaps with patterns of cultural homogenization, once nationalism is seized by the state. We maintain that the three intertwined conditions, cultural homogenization, genocide and nationalism, reached their peak during the two world wars and under the totalitarian rule built upon attempts to prolong the patterns of mass mobilization induced by war. In synthesis, the article affirms the need to engage in a social and political history of cultural homogenization as a sweeping and far-reaching set of events which profoundly affected almost every aspect of modern societies.