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The Peace of Westphalia is a series of agreements concluding the Thirty Years’ War. Signed in 1648, it ended the wars of religion and established borders until the French Revolution in 1789. Spain was forced to recognize the Dutch United Provinces, and the state of Switzerland was established. The Peace began the concept of state building. This notion unified each state under a common ruler, and promoted the growth of a nation.
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In 1804 Napoleon implemented his Civil Code after three years of drafts. It introduced a formal, unified law over all of France and its conquered territories. The Code ended a period of regionally diverse law, and promoted an accessible compilation published in the vernacular. Napoleon was able to draft one set of laws that applied to the entirety of France and its territories, contributing to the sense of a greater, unified nation.
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In 1812, the Grimm brothers published "Aschenputtel," or Cinderella in English, as part of a book of fairytales. The brothers were fascinated with German literature and travelled throughout the German states collecting oral tales and writing them down. They strongly believed in a unified Germany, and found that common tales told to German children provided a shared base knowledge. The stories helped create a unified German culture.
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From 1818 to 1819 Théodore Géricault painted The Raft of Medusa, a politically controversial, romantic painting. Though there are components of the historical genre, Géricault’s use of contrast and dramatization places the work in the romantic period. The painting depicts a well-known event, leaving a raft of people stranded of the coast of Mauritania. Emphasis placed on the ordinary human being makes it a relatable depiction of the event that the common man can connect with.
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The Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919, officially ending the First World War. Germany had asked for a peace based on Wilson’s Fourteen Points, but France made a point of greatly weakening Germany. Versailles is significant because it brought to an end the competition of nationalist powers. Each nation wanted more land, resources, and colonies. The result was war. Though this treaty attempted to reign in the negative effects of nationalism, it really only served to temporarily restrain them
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In the years before World War II, the widespread use of identity cards grew. Governments used them to track and supervise a population, and citizens used them to define themselves among their peers. To an individual, an identity card was a sense of belonging to a greater whole, a nation. To the government, the group of people who held the identity cards were the nation and needed to be monitored.
