Nationalism is partly an effect of the totalizing and homogenizing projects of state formation. These projects produce an imagined sense of political community that conflates peoplehood, territory, and state. Nationalism, loyalty and devotion to one’s nation or country, especially as above loyalty to other groups or to individual interests. Early nationalist movements in 18th- and early 19th-century Europe were liberal and internationalist, but they gradually became more conservative and parochial. Nationalism is considered a major contributing cause of World War I, World War II, and many other wars of the modern era.