Nationalism

by Hutchinson, John; Smith, Anthony

• ISBN13: 9780192892607
• ISBN10: 0192892606
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-02-09
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Achieving prevalence as an ideology in the political and social ferment of late 18th-century Europe and America, nationalism first found expression during the course of such historical upheavals as the American and French Revolutions. Its founders and early sponsors--Rousseau, Herder, Fichte, Korais, and Mazzini--looked to nationalism as the manifestation of modern humanity's most essential aspirations: autonomy, unity, identity. Born of notions regarding popular freedom and sovereignty that had been gathering momentum for generations, it conjured up images of a modernizing West at once hungry for change and yearning for a return to age-old concepts of fraternity and ancient heritage. Since that time nationalism, having taken on countless different dimensions, remains a vital and dynamic force for change--whether for good or otherwise. Despite only recently becoming the subject of scholarly debate, nationalism has been the focus of a truly prodigious amount of writing. This important Oxford Reader makes the topic more accessible by offering a broad, authoritative treatment of the key contributions to the subject, while giving unprecedented depth to recent debates and issues. Edited by two of the field's most influential scholars, the readings are representative of the vast array of experience and scholarship that have shaped the concept of nationalism for over two centuries. From Ernest Renan's What is a Nation?, written in the 1880s, to the more current views of the 1990s, Nationalism gathers under one cover an impressive array of writing on everything from imagined communities to ethno-regional movements. In no other volume will students of politics, history, sociology, anthropology, international relations, and cultural studies have access to such a definitive appraisal of one of the modern world's most influential--and explosive--ideas.

Author Biography

Anthony Smith is Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics. John Hutchinson is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Humanities at Griffith University, Brisbane.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Question of Definition Introduction

Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?

The Nation

The Nation

Nationalism and Social Communication

Primordial and Civic Ties

The Nation as Power-Container

A Nation is a Nation, is a State, is an Ethnic Group, is a...

Theories of Nationalism Introduction

Nationalism and Self-Determination

Nationalism and Modernization

Nationalism and High Cultures

The Maladies of Development

The Nation as Invented Tradition

Elite Competition and Nation-Formation

Imagined Communities

A Socio-Biological Perspective

The Sources of Nationalist Ideology

The Crisis of Dual Legitimation

Cultural Nationalism and Moral Regeneration

The Rise of Nations Introduction

Old and New Nations

Regnal Sentiments and Medieval Communities

Nations before Nationalism

The Origins of Nations

When is a Nation?

Nationalism In Europe Introduction

Western and Eastern Nationalisms

Liah Greenfeld, Types of European Nationalism

Nationalism in Eastern Europe

The Rise of Ethno-Linguistic Nationalisms

Ethno-Regional Movements in the West

Nationalism outside Europe Introduction

Creole Pioneers of Nationalism

Dark Gods and their Rites

National History and its Exclusions

Islam and Nationalism

Ideologies of Delayed Development

The Colonial Construction of African Nations

State and Nation in African Thought

Economic Nationalism in New States

Nationalism and the International System Introduction

Three Phases of Nationalism

The Rise of the Nation-State System

Europe and the International State System

War and Nations

Ethnic Conflict in the West

The Logic of Secessions

Irredentist and Secessionist Challenges

Towards a Post-Communist World

Beyond Nationalism? Introduction

Ethnic Nationalism and Post-Industrialism

Reasserting the Polyethnic Norm

Narrating the Nation

Women and the Nation-State

Europeanness: A New Cultural Battlefield?

Notes Select Bibliography Biographical

Notes

Acknowledgements

Index

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