Reviews for Nationalism Its Meaning and History

The average rating for Nationalism Its Meaning and History based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-03-03 00:00:00 Hugo Rodrigez A detailed, thorough history of the emergence of nationalism in Europe and how nationalism changed shape in specific countries. What occurred on the basis of individual liberty and patriotic valour for one's fatherland, eventually transpired to embrace totalitarian philosophy based on ethnic exclusivity and regional absolutism. Also, industrialisation, economic surplus and the free flow of capital paved the way where nationalism found an able friend in the form of capitalism. Later, nationalism inspired de-colonial struggles in third world nations; in it was the potential to strive for a finer definition devoid of any ethnic superiority or a clarion call to a mythic past. Nationalism, here, was based on the Will of the individual, the collective manifestation of which would be the constitution. Hence, the importance of abiding by constitutional morality formed the integral aspect of nationalist fervour. Otherwise which one could be deemed an anti-national. Also, the added list of readings was extremely beneficial.

Review # 2 was written on 2021-01-18 00:00:00 Will Roy Very informative and short book. Reading on the topic of nationalism literally oppened my mind and changed my perspective about how I view the world, so many of the ideas which I used to take for granted and assuming them to be "natural" are not so "natural" or for that matter, so old as is commonly claimed. It makes you wiser. If anyone wants another good book on this topic, they should read "Nationalism" by Elie Kedourie. The only negative (and minor) point which I would do against this book concerns Hans Kohn's section on the Arabic speaking lands where the author takes at face value the claims of a group of nationalists as representative of how the Middle East works. Clearly, with the hindsight we have today, this has been proven to be false But you did not need this hindsight considering some authors (Elie Kedourie, for example) writing about the same time as Hans Kohn already called it for what it was : a farce. Other than that, the book is excellent.