Nationalism, Liberalism, and Progress: The dismal fate of new nations

Nationalism, Liberalism, and Progress: The dismal fate of new nations
ISBN-10
0801431093
ISBN-13
9780801431098
Category
History
Pages
504
Language
English
Published
1997
Publisher
Cornell University Press
Author
Ernst B. Haas

Description

Has global liberalism made the nation-state obsolete? Or, on the contrary, are primordial nationalist hatreds overwhelming cosmopolitanism? To assert either theme without serious qualification, according to Ernst B. Haas, is historically simplistic and morally misleading. Haas describes nationalism as a key component of modernity and a crucial instrument for making sense of impersonal, rapidly changing, and heterogeneous societies. He characterizes nationalism as a feeling of collective identity, a mutual understanding experienced among people who may never meet but who are persuaded that they belong to a community of kindred spirits. Without nationalism, there could be no large integrated state. He explores nationalism in five societies that had achieved the status of nation-states by about 1880: the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and Japan.

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