Customer Reviews

Nationalism (Oxford Readers)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Professors John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith, both at the London School of Economics, have put together here a great collection of texts from the major writers on nationalism over the last 100 years. Starting with Ernest Renan, Joseph Stalin and Max Weber, the book also includes extracts from Benedict Anderson, Walker Connor, Partha Chatterjee, Karl Deutsch, Ernest Gellner, Liah Greenfeld, EJ Hobsbawm, Donald Horowitz, Elie Kedourie, Hans Kohn, James Mayall, Tom Nairn, and Anthony Smith himself, in addition to many others. As in Smith's _Nationalism and Modernism_, all perspectives of the field are represented here. There are 49 essays organized into seven chapters, complete with an introduction to each plus notes, a bibliography, information about each author and an index.

This book is a definite must for anyone interested in nationalism.

This is a reader that covers the various theories of nationalism as well as varieties of nationalism itself. This makes it a largely indispensable supplement, handbook and reference work for anyone interested in nationalism. This is particularly true today as the scholarship on this social phenomenon continues to grow unabated, and since it is patently obvious that nationalism hardly seems about to disappear. The reader contains important extracts from the major works on nationalism by some of the most important early theorists such as Renan, Max Weber and Stalin (although the views of Marx and Engels themselves or Lord Acton and Friedrich Meinecke would have been welcome additions) and almost all of the most important contemporary scholars (Gellner, Anderson, Connor, A. Smith, etc.). The texts are well-selected and organized, and it really contributes to making a very complex subject and a daunting field of scholarship seem a little easier to grasp.

This book is a reader on nationalism that does an excellent summary - perhaps the best summary around - of all the key developments on thought about nationalism. This is a field that has rapidly expanded over the last few decades and thus profits greatly from this work of synthesis and comparative analysis. One of the great things about the book is its inclusion of extracts from the writings of luminaries in the field, from Joseph Stalin and Max Weber to more recent commentators like Eric Hosbawm and Benedict Anderson.

The book is divided into a number of chapters, each with an introduction and a selection of extracts from a number of writers. The chapter headings alone indicate the sheer breadth of the book:

1. The question of definition
2. Theories of nationalism
3. The rise of nations
4. Nationalism in Europe
5. Nationalism outside Europe
6. Nationalism and the international system
7. Beyond nationalism?

Students will find this extremely useful as a general survey of the subject. General readers will also be interested the issues flagged up, which bear immense relevance to contemporary politics, society and culture.

A five-star contribution to the field.

This is an excellent resource for history students interested in the history of nationalism or the studies of nationalism. With excerpts from famous scholars of nationalism like Kedourie, Anderson, Hobsbawm, and Gellner, readers can see almost every aspect of the definition for "nationalism." Slow read, but this isn't for the easily bored either.

I had the privilege of studying under Professors Smith and Hutchinson at LSE, and this books reflects their syllabus for their course on Nationalism. Many of the readings we studied in their class are excerpted in this reader, providing an excellent review of the theoretical development of nationalism.

This book was purchased in the used category, but came in brand new condition. Extremely interesting book that I have digested for school.

Excerpts from many prominent books and classics dealing with the various dimensions of nationalism provide reader with useful introduction to this complex social phenomen. Recommended.

This is a fine book that, alas, mirrors a major flaw in the way that nationalism and national identity are taught and understood today: it includes only theorists and analysts, and not a speck of primary source material. If nationalism is truly whatever we define it as, then fine; but, unfortunately, the theorists included in this book did (or should have) worked with primary sources, and students ought to have the same chance.

The dearness of the book is due to the fact that it an anthology, not necessarily because it comes from a university press.

I was looking forward to reading the book to look at the multiplicity of voices that grew out of the increased interest in the subject of nationalism in the post-colonial break up of the European powers. I have read several of these books in the last year as I have become a more interested amateur student in the subject: Nations and Nationalism (New Perspectives on the Past), Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New Edition), and Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Canto).

However, for whatever reason, I was not able to dig into this book as a potential cover-to-cover reader. I think one of the strengths, the many voices, is a weakness for a casual reader. I borrowed this book from the library, so my personal investment in completing the text is less than one I had bought. That said, I would say that this book is better for one that is writing a paper or taking a class. Although it is intuitively laid out, the work is not a coherent argument like the previously cited texts. I would like to finish reading it, but the due date is approaching and I have other books looking at me plaintively.