Faces of Nationalism

This work posits that nation-building movements from 1750 to 1990 have saved the world from imperial barbarism. Contrary to many gloomy prognoses following the Soviet and Yugoslav collapses, Nairn claims that the chaos feared by so many observers is neither endless nor one-sidedly destructive. In "T [...]
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This work posits that nation-building movements from 1750 to 1990 have saved the world from imperial barbarism. Contrary to many gloomy prognoses following the Soviet and Yugoslav collapses, Nairn claims that the chaos feared by so many observers is neither endless nor one-sidedly destructive. In "The Modern Janus", Nairn argued for the democratic necessity of nationalism in the modern world. In this work, he addresses the subsequent upheavals caused by nationalism. While insisting that nationalism is as inescapable as ever, Nairn shows how its forms and content are shifting. The ethnic definition of the national is giving to the civic, the "natural" to the designed. He believes that today's more civic and secular nationalism is a key feature of modernity and not an archaic reaction against it. This discussion takes in Ireland and Palestine, Bosnia and Czecho-Slovakia, Cambodia and Rwanda, South Africa and Scotland. Tom Nairn is the author of "The Enchanted Glass" and "The Break-Up of Britain".