Nationalism

[bailey_187]

I been reading the book Imagined Communties, which explains the rise of nationalism and how it was facilitated by printing press (i havnt finished it so cant say too much).

Anyway, iv found the idea of nationalism and how it came about really interesting. It also shows how stupid nationalism is really.

So does anyone know any good books on the history of nationalism and criticisms of the idea of nationalism?

Does anyone disagree with Imagined Communities' argument?

[The Idler]

Hobsbawm is supposed to be quite good on this.
Here is a map of Europe every 100 years from 1 to 2000 AD (http://www.euratlas.net/history/europe/index.html)

[ComradeOm]

Hobsbawm is indeed the man when it comes to the likes of this. His 'long century' trilogy (Age of Revolution, Age of Capital, Age of Empire) goes into nationalism in some depth. But then that's to be expected of any history of the 19th C. Essential reading if you've any interest in that century (and you should)

Can't recall the details of Hobsbawm's arguments off-hand, but its common to trace the first emergence of nationalism, in its modern guise, to the French Revolution and ensuing wars. Here, for really the first time, it became possible to fight for France or Germany, and not just 'that guy with the big hat on the horse'. Even then it took another century for national entities as we know them to take shape


Here is a map of Europe every 100 years from 1 to 2000 ADBe aware that a lot of those older maps are pretty much guesswork. This is particularly true for the steppe areas in what is today European Russia. Borders, as demarcation lines, simply didn't exist back then. Even then these maps are exceptionally simplistic - painting France as a single entity stretching back before the last millennium hardly expresses the complexity (read: chaos) of the political landscape and the myriad internal divisions that divided lord from lord.

[Thirsty Crow]

Does anyone disagree with Imagined Communities' argument?
I've been briefly, very briefly introduced to the argument of this work by one of my professors, and from what I could have gathered from his exposition - it seems as a plausible, materialist explanation of the conditions which enabled the rise of nationalism as a distinct ideology - in both its bourgeois, republican and deeply reactionary, loyalist forms.

[bricolage]

Hobsbawm is indeed the man when it comes to the likes of this. His 'long century' trilogy (Age of Revolution, Age of Capital, Age of Empire) goes into nationalism in some depth. But then that's to be expected of any history of the 19th C. Essential reading if you've any interest in that century (and you should)
These are all very good but in regards to nationalism I would also recommend The Invention of Tradition and Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality

[The Idler]

Rudolf Rocker also wrote something called Cultural and Nationalisms

[Geiseric]

Mein Kamph has something to do with nationalism hahaha. Jk...