Pros and Cons of Nationalism Nationalism was coined in 1770 and plays an important role in shaping many nations around the world. Nationalism has many positive and negative aspects. Nationalism has the power to unite people despite their classes. It also has the ability to unite people to lead movements against oppressive governments. There is a downside that nationalism can use as a method to evoke fear. The biggest downside is that most nationalistic movements have inevitably led to some form of conflict. Nationalism is a dangerous movement that can lead to oppression of opposition groups and lead to conflicts. Nationalism is a sense of strong pride and loyalty of a nation over other nations. This is different from past beliefs that pride and loyalty reside in religion. Its greatest strength was to cross social classes and motivate large groups of people. Stavrianos, 1999) Nationalism developed in the 1770s and gained great support throughout Europe. The first signs of nationalism were found in England during the Puritan revolution. England during the time of the revolution was becoming a leading nation scientifically and economically and they thought it would change their view of freedom. John Milton, one of the major writers of the time, characterized this change in freedom as “celebrated for endless ages as the most favorable soil for the growth of liberty.” (Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 2011) The French Revolution had a great influence on the development of nationalism. French Enlightenment thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau helped spread nationalism throughout Europe through his works on popular sovereignty in which people gave their consent to be governed. (Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 2011) This was the starting point for… middle of paper… uniting one group of people by evoking the fear of another group. The greatest weakness of nationalism is the large amount of conflicts created by nationalistic movements. It seems that almost all nationalistic movements lead to some form of conflict. Even considered positive examples of nationalism have led to conflict. The inevitability of conflict along with groups being persecuted for not being part of the nationalist movement makes nationalism more dangerous than good. Works Cited1. "nationalism." Encyclopedia Britannica online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 2011. Web. 18 April 2011.2. Halsall, Paul. "Nationalism." FORDHAM.EDU. September 22, 1997.3. Stavrianos, Leften S. A Global History. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1999.4. Norton, James H. K. India and South Asia. 9th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2010.