From the late eighteenth century, the idea that humanity is naturally divided into nations, each entitled to govern itself within its own state, gained force in the wake of the American and French revolutions. Through the nineteenth century it reshaped European politics, fuelling the unification of Germany and Italy and independence movements within multi-ethnic empires. Nationalism fused language, history and shared culture into claims for political self-determination. It became one of the most powerful organising forces of the modern world.
It produced the modern nation-state and, through it, the deliberate construction of national capitals and monumental civic ensembles, boulevards, parliaments and squares, intended to express and project collective identity.