Many Arabs believe that they are an old nation, exhibiting pride, for example, based on Arabic poetry and other forms of Arabic literature. In the era of the spread of Islam, nationalism was manifested by the identification of Arabs as a distinct nation within Islamic countries. In the modern era, this idea was embodied by ideologies such as Nasserism and Ba'athism, which were common forms of nationalism in the Arab world, especially in the mid-twentieth century. Perhaps the most important form of creating such an Arab state was the establishment of the United Arab Republic between Egypt and Syria, although it was short-lived. To some extent, Arab nationalism gained a new popular appeal as a result of the Arab Spring of the 2010s, calling for Arab social unity, led by the people on the streets, not the authoritarian regimes that had installed the historic forms of nationalism.
