The Endurance of Nationalism: Ancient Roots and Modern Dilemmas

Description

Aviel Roshwald directly challenges prevalent scholarly orthodoxies about the exclusively modern character of nationalism. He argues that nationalism's enduring power to shape the world we live in arises directly out of its position at the heart of inescapable social and political paradoxes that are not only fundamental to the modern experience, but many of whose roots can be traced back into ancient history. Modern nationalisms, the author contends, cannot be fully understood without first examining their ancient counterparts and archetypes. Deploying a broad array of historical and contemporary case studies (ranging from ancient Jewish nationalism to the contemporary Israeli-Palestinian conflict, from the nationalist politics of ancient Greece to the contested memory of the Alamo, and from the Yugoslav wars to Northern Ireland's Orange Parades) the author argues that a responsible politics of nationalism depends upon a forthright acknowledgement of the deep-seated and intrinsically insoluble dilemmas that inhere in it.

Aviel Roshwald is Professor of History at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He is the author of The Endurance of Nationalism: Ancient Roots and Modern Dilemmas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). His previous publications include Estranged Bedfellows: Britain and France in the Middle East during the Second World War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990) and Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires: Central Europe, Russia and the Middle East, 1914-1923 (London: Routledge, 2001). He is co-editor, with Richard Stites, of European Culture during the Great War: The Arts, Entertainment, and Propaganda, 1914-1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

'The terms and the debates are clearly explained and well sourced ... There is a penetrating analysis of the response to 9/11 ... and extensive discussion on European examples, ancient and modern.' Times Higher Education Supplement