Product Description

This updated edition of Ernest Gellner’s classic exploration of the roots of nationalism includes an extended introduction from John Breuilly, tracing the way the field has changed over the past two decades.

Second Edition not available in the USA.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #114247 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Review
"Over ten years after his death, Gellner′s impact remains unparalleled. We are captivated by the explanatory power of Gellner′s crystalline prose enriched by flowing sequences of causations. The reader is typically enchanted by Gellner′s logical rigour as if mesmerised by the contemplation of an art masterpiece. We should wonder whether we are dealing with a scholar or with a poet. The answer is probably both." Nations and Nationalism

"Breuilly’s new introduction provides an excellent critical overview of Gellner’s writings on nationalism, judiciously evaluating his ideas while also providing insights into their place and continuing significance within the wider historiography of nationalism studies." Paul Lawrence, The Open University

"Nations and Nationalism has become such an intrinsic part of the standard literature that it is regularly cited by both those who share its views and those who distinguish their approach from Gellner’s."
Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions

"The second edition of this canonical text comes with a compelling Introduction by John Breuilly which revisits Gellner′s theory in the light of contemporary debates on nationalism.” Umut Özkýrýmlý, Istanbul Bilgi University

reviews of the first edition:

"Brilliant, provocative ... a great book." New Statesman

"An important book ... a new starting line from which all subsequent discussions of nationalism will have to begin." New Society

"A better explanation than anyone has yet offered of why nationalism is such a prominent principle of political legitimacy today ... a terse and forceful work ... the product of great intellectual energy and an impressive range of knowledge." Times Literary Supplement

"Gellner′s short book is an incisive, penetrating and persuasive discussion of how the nation–states of the modern industrial world differ from earlier states ... Gellner uses this analysis to explain the force of nationalism in the modern world." International Security

"Gellner′s range is wide, covering the ideas of some modern thinkers from Marx, Malinowski and Carr to heideggar, Hroch, Havel and Said." Race and Class

The Times Literary Supplement
"A better explanation than anyone has yet offered of why nationalism is such a prominent principle of political legitimacy today.

From the Back Cover
Ernest Gellner’s Nations and Nationalism (1983) provides one of the most powerful and original interpretations of modern nationalism. Drawing upon a range of disciplines, including philosophy, anthropology, sociology, politics and history, Gellner argues that nationalism is an inescapable consequence of modernity.

For this new edition of Nations and Nationalism, John Breuilly, Professor of Nationalism and Ethnicity at the London School of Economics and Political Science, provides a substantial introduction, analysing Gellner’s arguments and tracing and evaluating the ways in which the field has changed over the past two decades. Suggestions for further reading have also been updated.

Second Edition not available from Wiley–Blackwell in North America.

Customer Reviews

The Bible for the modernist nationalist student!
A short and fully comprehensive review of the modernist viewpoint on nationalism. It is expressed in a style that is easy to digest and invokes interest within the topic area of nationalism. Exploring Islam and Marxist viewpoints as well as critiquing the primordial approach Gellner succeeds in convincing the reader of the modern birth of the nation, as opposed to its modern day critics. There is a fresh and timeless vibrancy to the text every time a reader picks it up. It is essential reading for any student studying Nationalism.

A good starting point for the study of nationalism
Nations and Nationalism is a readable account of the birth and rise of nationalism, but suffers from its mechanistic portrayal of society. Put simply, Gellner sees the rise of cities through industrialisation as creating, ex nihilo, modern nationalsim. The movement away from the agrarian, peasant existance to one of nineteenth-century economism leads Gellner to believe that before industrialisation there was no nationalism, and after it there will be nothing in the future other than nationalism. For an author who chides Marx over his determinist viewpoint, Gellner makes the identical mistake with nationalism as Marx did with materialsim. Read this book because it presents some useful introductory concepts, but be warned that the books I've come across on nationalism (Hobsbawm, Breuilly, Anderson, Gellner, Hastings) all suffer from inadequate explainations. If you seriously want to look for a challenging modern world view, I would suggest starting with either Bourdieu's Logic of Practice or Foucault's Discipline and Punish. Perhaps the latter of the two is best to start with, as the comparison to what is called by most, if not all, contemporary historians as 'nationalsim' compares nicely to what Foucault calls 'surveillance.'