Nationalism

by Anthony D. Smith

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0192892606
• ISBN13: 9780192892607
• Release Date: February 1995
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 392 Pages
• Weight: 1.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

excellent resource for history students

This is an excellent resource for history students interested in the history of nationalism or the studies of nationalism. With excerpts from famous scholars of nationalism like Kedourie, Anderson, Hobsbawm, and Gellner, readers can see almost every aspect of the definition for "nationalism." Slow read, but this isn't for the easily bored either.

Excellent summary of Nationalism

This book is a reader on nationalism that does an excellent summary - perhaps the best summary around - of all the key developments on thought about nationalism. This is a field that has rapidly expanded over the last few decades and thus profits greatly from this work of synthesis and comparative analysis. One of the great things about the book is its inclusion of extracts from the writings of luminaries in the field, from Joseph Stalin and Max Weber to more recent commentators like Eric Hosbawm and Benedict Anderson. The book is divided into a number of chapters, each with an introduction and a selection of extracts from a number of writers. The chapter headings alone indicate the sheer breadth of the book: 1. The question of definition 2. Theories of nationalism 3. The rise of nations 4. Nationalism in Europe 5. Nationalism outside Europe 6. Nationalism and the international system 7. Beyond nationalism? Students will find this extremely useful as a general survey of the subject. General readers will also be interested the issues flagged up, which bear immense relevance to contemporary politics, society and culture. A five-star contribution to the field.

Akin to a master-class.

I had the privilege of studying under Professors Smith and Hutchinson at LSE, and this books reflects their syllabus for their course on Nationalism. Many of the readings we studied in their class are excerpted in this reader, providing an excellent review of the theoretical development of nationalism.

Indispensable resource

This is a reader that covers the various theories of nationalism as well as varieties of nationalism itself. This makes it a largely indispensable supplement, handbook and reference work for anyone interested in nationalism. This is particularly true today as the scholarship on this social phenomenon continues to grow unabated, and since it is patently obvious that nationalism hardly seems about to disappear. The reader contains important extracts from the major works on nationalism by some of the most important early theorists such as Renan, Max Weber and Stalin (although the views of Marx and Engels themselves or Lord Acton and Friedrich Meinecke would have been welcome additions) and almost all of the most important contemporary scholars (Gellner, Anderson, Connor, A. Smith, etc.). The texts are well-selected and organized, and it really contributes to making a very complex subject and a daunting field of scholarship seem a little easier to grasp.

comprehensive reader of theories of nationalism

Professors John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith, both at the London School of Economics, have put together here a great collection of texts from the major writers on nationalism over the last 100 years. Starting with Ernest Renan, Joseph Stalin and Max Weber, the book also includes extracts from Benedict Anderson, Walker Connor, Partha Chatterjee, Karl Deutsch, Ernest Gellner, Liah Greenfeld, EJ Hobsbawm, Donald Horowitz, Elie Kedourie, Hans Kohn, James Mayall, Tom Nairn, and Anthony Smith himself, in addition to many others. As in Smith's _Nationalism and Modernism_, all perspectives of the field are represented here. There are 49 essays organized into seven chapters, complete with an introduction to each plus notes, a bibliography, information about each author and an index.This book is a definite must for anyone interested in nationalism.