Editing History of the Alps (section)

=== Political history ===
Like other parts of Europe, the Alpine region was affected by the formation of the [[nation states]] that produced tensions between various groups and had consequences for border areas. In these regions, the coercive power of the state was felt much more strongly that it had been before. Borders lost their permeability and now bisected areas formerly characterised by a shared sense of community and ongoing exchanges. During World War I the eastern Alpine region was one of the epicentres of the conflict.<ref>See e.g. Gianni Pieropan: Storia della grande guerra sul fronte italiano 1914–1918, Milan 2001.</ref>

After World War II, the Alps entered a new phase. At one and the same time, regional identities were reinforced and a common Alpine identity was constructed. A remarkable step was made in 1991 with the signing of the [[Alpine Convention]] between all Alpine countries and the European Union. This process was strengthened by the appearance of a new set of cultural values for the Alps. In the nineteenth century, there had been a tension between the romantic advocates of the "sacredness" of the Alpine peaks (such as [[John Ruskin]]), and modern mountain climbers (such as Leslie Stephen), who promoted the notion of the Alps as the "playground of Europe". In the twentieth century, the mountains acquired a clearly positive, iconic, status as places unsullied by undesirable urban influences such as pollution, noise and so on.<ref>See e.g. Enrico Camanni: La montagna descritta, in: Le cattedrali della terra, Milan 2000, pp. 160–165.</ref>