Nation Branding: A Useful Category for International History

This analysis suggests nation branding" as a useful category for the study of international relations and international history. In the past 15 years, entrepreneurs have invented nation branding as something new and modern, and governments the world over have signed up for cost-intensive campaigns to brand their countries' images abroad. However, practices of nation branding have been around much longer. Indeed, the history of nation branding avant la lettre needs writing. That history provides a major encasement for the multitude of individual studies dedicated to soft power, public diplomacy, and cultural relations across time and space. This analysis looks first the at current experts and discourses on nation branding. Second, it sketches nation branding's emergence from the end of the early modern period to the present. Third, it suggests a number of historical examples to inspire future research.