The essays in this volume have all attempted, from different standpoints, to explain the birth, development and resilience of nationalism in the mo-dern era. Undoubtedly, as we hypothesised in the introduction, this "ism" has been a major phenomenon of the last two centuries. This is evident from the multiplication of nation-states all over the world. At the be-ginning of the nineteenth century there were about ten states—most of them European—in the world; today there are nearly two hundred. Such an increase testifies to the strength of the principle of self-determination, which proclaims the right of peoples to decide their own future.¹