Nations and Nationalism

The late Ernest Gellner (1925-1995) was Director of the Centre for the Study of Nationalism, part of the Central European University, in Prague. His many books included Plough, Sword and Book: The Structure of Human History, Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and Its Rivals, and Language and Solitude: Wittgenstein, Malinowski and the Habsburg Dilemma. John Breuilly is Professor of Nationalism and Ethnicity at the London School of Economics. His books include The Formation of the First German Nation-State, 1800-1871 and Nationalism and the State.

• Introduction, by John Breuilly1. DefinitionsState and NationThe Nation2. Culture in Agrarian SocietyPower and Culture in the Agro-literate Polity CultureThe State in Agrarian SocietyThe Varieties of Agrarian Rulers3. Industrial SocietyThe Society of Perpetual GrowthSocial GeneticsThe Age of Universal High Culture4. The Transition to an Age of NationalismA Note on the Weakness of NationalismWild and Garden Cultures5. What is a Nation?The Course of True Nationalism Never did Run Smooth6. Social Entropy and Equality in Industrial SocietyObstacles to EntropyFissures and BarriersA Diversity of Focus7. A Typology of NationalismsThe Varieties of Nationalist ExperienceDiaspora Nationalism8. The Future of NationalismIndustrial Culture - One or Many?9. Nationalism and IdeologyWho is for Nuremberg?One Nation, One State10. ConclusionWhat is not being SaidSummarySelect BibliographyBibliography of Ernest Gellner's Writings on Nationalism, by Ian JamieIndex

A better explanation than anyone has yet offered of why nationalism is such a prominent principle of political legitimacy today. This is a terse and forceful work... the product of great intellectual energy and an impressive range of knowledge.(Times Literary Supplement) Brilliant, provocative... a great book.(New Statesman) An important book... It is a new starting line from which all subsequent discussions of nationalism will have to begin.(New Society) Periodically, an important book emerges that makes us, through the uniqueness of its theory, perceive history as we have not seen it before. Ernest Gellner has written such a volume. Students of nationalism will have to come to grips with his interpretation of the causes for the emergence of nationalism, since he has declared that most of the previous explanations are largely mythical.(American Historical Review)