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The post-war world has been shaped primarily by a clash between Nationalism and Imperialism
Choose one of these assertions and develop an argument for it.
With regards to the assignment question, I will certainly be in agreement with the argument the clash between imperialism and nationalism had shaped the post-war world more prominently as compared to the idea of communism and capitalism constituted to the molding of the past decades. Very simply, studies showed that even till this age of globalization, the notion of imperialism and nationalism are still floating among us, with a modern twist, that is (Tomlinson, 1991).
We first have to ask the question, what sparked off nationalism? The answer by most scholars would most probably be the oppression of great powers during the time of imperialism. What then, defines imperialism and how did it came about? According to O’ Brian (2007), imperialism is the practice of any one state to influence or conquer another with the intention to expand its wealth, power and control over dominions or self-governing colonies. After the end of World War Two, with the declination of powers among the former colonizers across the globe, the industrializing countries like Britain and France were increasingly gaining possession of many colonies (Best, et al., 20008). It is through colonialism that the imperial powers executed what we call as imperialism where in its best sense, is the ‘natural overflow of nationality’; its test is the power of the colonist to transplant the civilization they represent to the new natural and social environment in which the colonists find themselves. And in which of course, lying beneath is a negative connotation that is often associated with a loss of identity and belonging (Hobson, 2007).
The post-war world as according to Rajan and Sauer (2004) was significantly changed by the settling of foreign