Nationalism: A Short History

by Liah Greenfeld

" “We need a nation,” declared a certain Phillippe Grouvelle in the revolutionary year of 1789, “and the Nation will be born.”—from Nationalism Nationalism, often the scourge, always the basis of modern world politics, is spreading. In a way, all nations are willed into being. But a simple declaration, such as Grouvelle's, is not enough. As historian Liah Greenfeld shows in her new book, a sense of nation—nationalism—is the product of the complex distillation of ideas and beliefs, and the struggles over them. Greenfeld takes the reader on an intellectual journey through the origins of the concept “nation” and how national consciousness has changed over the centuries. From its emergence in sixteenth century England, nationalism has been behind nearly every significant development in world affairs over succeeding centuries, including the American and French revolutions of the late eighteenth centuries and the authoritarian communism and fascism of the twentieth century. Now it has arrived as a mass phenomenon in China as well as gaining new life in the United States and much of Europe in the guise of populism. Written by an authority on the subject, Nationalism stresses the contradictory ways of how nationalism has been institutionalized in various places. On the one hand, nationalism has made possible the realities of liberal democracy, human rights, and individual self-determination. On the other hand, nationalism also has brought about authoritarian and racist regimes that negate the individual as an autonomous agent. That tension is all too apparent today. "

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2019

About the author

Called “one of the most original thinkers of the current period” and “the great historian of Nationalism,” Liah Greenfeld is University Professor and Professor of Sociology, Political Science, and Anthropology at Boston University. She is the author of “Mind, Modernity, Madness: The Impact of Culture on Human Experience” (Harvard University Press, 2013) and other books about modern society and culture, including the ground-breaking “Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity” (Harvard University Press, 1992) and “The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth (Harvard University Press, 2001; Donald Kagan Best Book in European History Prize). Greenfeld has been the Distinguished Adjunct Professor at Lingnan University, Hong Kong and a recipient of the UAB Ireland Distinguished Visiting Scholar Award, fellowships from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C., the Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem, Israel, and grants from Mellon, Olin, Earhart, The National Council for Soviet & East European Research, and The German Marshall Fund of the United States. In 2004, she delivered the Gellner Lecture at the London School of Economics on the subject of "Nationalism and the Mind," launching the research connecting her previous work on modern culture to a new perspective on mental illness.

Reviews

[Sasha (bahareads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nationalism's main theme is Nationalism is the history of equality, good, and bad. Equality is the essential value of nationalism and therefore nationalism is inherently democratic. Greenfeld splits this book into five chapters with a focus on countries and the themes they bring to nationalism. The chapters are as follows - England: the beginning of nationalism, France: Nationalism was made pan-European by them, Russia + USA: launched Nationalism worldwide & the three types of nationalism, Transformation: the types of democracy and what they bring, and the final chapter: globalization of nationalism and Asia.

Never studying nationalism on a serious level before Nationalism: a short history is intriguing. Greenfeld raises many questions in my mind about how nationalism is spread. Her book is very eurocentric while in the introduction she talks about how there are only three populations who preserved their cultural integrity in the 2,500 years (Chinese, Indians, and Jews), she doesn't give much explanation on it in the end as to why their cohesive continuity would not be considered nationalism in a sense. I do get what Greenfeld is trying to go for but as a whole, I feel like non-European cultures are very much excluded.

The main types of nationalism touched in here are
individualistic/civic - USA & Great Britain (population has autonomy)
collectivistic/civic - France (population doesn't have autonomy but it does have a say in civics)
collectivistic/ethnic - Russia (no autonomy across the board)

*The author is born in Russia during the USSR era so that's important to keep in mind during reading her chapter on Russia.

"Nationalism is a defining factor of our world: it defines the existential experience." According to Greenfeld, Nationalism's appeal is for everyone to have personal identity and dignity. Different ideologies, political and economic regimes such as communism, populism, socialism are just different examples of the same root (nationalism).

Overall Nationalism: a Short History is an informative read that can expand your worldview while sparking the idea in your mind "what is nationalism?"

[Caiza Lind · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know, if I wasn't burning through it for an assignment, I think it would be even better

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is written much better than you would expect an academic book to be, however this is the only point in it's favor.

One of the most glaring issues is the use of absolutely absurdly idiosyncratic terminology. For instance, she says explicitly that fascism is a type of democracy. This is true using here weird definition of democracy (which, as far as I can tell, is the same as her definition of 'nationalism') but it is not true using anything remotely resembling a normal definition of that word. She also asserts that there are only three civilizations in the world (China, India, and the Monotheistic Civilization). She then proceeds to say virtually nothing about India and focuses almost exclusively on the 'monotheistic civilization.' Again, her definition of 'civilization' is very weird and explicitly does not include, for example, the Roman Empire.

Her second problem involves a weird attempt to psychoanalyze nations and their 'national consciousnesses.' Apparently all of Russian history for the last 400 years is essentially the product of Russia's intelligentsia's envy of the dynamism of western nationalism. Allegedly the reason France became anti-capitalist is because it was so jealous of how well English capitalism was working.

The third main issue is the Eurocentrism. England, France, Russia, the United States and Germany are talked about at length. China and Japan share a reasonable amount of space. Africa and the Middle East are almost entirely ignored (there are a few very brief references to Islam). India (despite being one of only three 'civilizations') is barely talked about. I don't think any of Latin America came up at all. It is rather shocking that decolonization is barely even touched on.

Issue number four: Greenfeld attributes too much to nationalism. Nationalism is obviously an important part of modern history, but it is not the only part of modern history. Greenfeld attributes the French, American, and Industrial revolutions to nationalism. All modern ideologies (from liberalism to communism to fascism) are products of nationalism too. Most technological progress is the product of nationalism. The rise of the west is entirely the product of nationalism, as is the later rise of Japan.

#5: She attributes the origins of nationalism to a historical accident in English history. She goes out of her way to say that *everything* in history is the product of historical accident, but she is putting way too much socio-political change down to some lower class people being promoted to elite ranks in England one time. Also Caspar Hirschi has a pretty compelling book arguing that there were nationalist ideas (although no nationalist movements, or really any significant national consciousness) in the late medieval period, which predates the War of the Roses, which is Greenfeld's beginning of nationalism.

[Ignacio · Rating 1 out of 5]

An orthodox (and Anglophilic) view of history that uncritically embraces nationalism to an absurd level, rather than analyse it. It is filled with anachronisms (like calling Ancient Judea an egalitarian society or England the European superpower in the 18th Century) and unsupported statements, the majority of which are essential for the author’s thesis (and, as such, need to be supported with sources to have some level of credibility). Alongside that, its presentation of (non-English) nationalism can be basically defined by the author psychoanalysing states as if they were human beings, reaching conclusions like French nationalism developing from its envy towards England, or Russian nationalism appearing because of the intrinsic resentment typical of Christianity (which, again, aren’t supported by sources).

The author even twists the meaning of words and concepts to support her thesis, more predominantly by saying that nationalism and democracy are synonymous. Which leads to the author calling Nazi Germany “democratic” because it is a nationalist state, and saying that “fascism is democratic by definition” because, once again, fascist Italy and fascist Spain were nationalists.

Alongside this –while the book was published in 2019– the author refuses to interact with present historiography, with almost all of the few sources cited being published before the beginning of the 21st Century (the majority of which are also published during the first half of the 20th Century or earlier). There are only 4 citations from sources published in this century, and two of them are citations to previous works from the same author.

The quality of this book borders pseudo-history.

[Josiah Parry · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely astute depiction of the brief history of nationalism. This book takes a sociological approach to understanding nationhood, revolution, and the development of nationalism as we see it today. The writing is unlike most other academic pieces. Very colorful.