Nations before the Nation-State

Anna Marisa Schön is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Department of Political Science at Duke University. Her research focuses on medieval political thought, and questions surrounding nationalism, national pluralism, and empire. She has co-translated J. G. Fichte's work on the French Revolution (2021) and her work has appeared in History of Political Thought, British Journal of the History of Philosophy, and Democratic Theory.

• Part I. Introduction: A Plan for Rethinking the Nation: 1. The nation-state paradigm; 2. A project of conceptual recovery; 3. Political imagination; 4. Liberal multiculturalism and constitutional patriotism; 5. Selection of sources and overview of the book; 6. Some preliminary conclusions; Part II. What Is a Nation? A Brief Historiography of Theories of the Nation: 1. Romantic beginnings; 2. Classical modernism and the state; 3. The modernist bogeyman; 4. Ethno-symbolism and its critics; 5. Getting our history less wrong; Part III. A Tale of Two Fatherlands: Ancient Conceptions of Nationhood: 1. Ancient sources of Hellenicity; 2. Greek patriotism; 3. The bonds of humanity; 4. Roman citizenship and legal pluralism; 5. Nations in the vulgate; 6. Religion, Law, and Peoplehood in Biblical Judaea; Part IV. Post-Roman Transitions: National Identity in the Wake of the Empire: 1. Cassiodorus' imperial propaganda; 2. Ethnonyms and etymologies; 3. Isidore's appropriation of empire; 4. Historiography as political theory; Part V. Medieval Imperialism: National Diversity and Universal Order: 1. World government and its alternatives; 2. Dante imagines the nation; 3. Humanity's intellectual unity; 4. Difference as punishment, difference as pleasure; 5. Consent as the foundation of empire; Part VI. Nationality and the Medieval 'State' in France: 1. Medieval international relations; 2. Dubois' multinational vision for the holy land; 3. A pre-national defense of political particularism; 4. Participatory citizenship in the footsteps of marsiglio of Padua; 5. Love for king and country; Part VII. The Nation at a Crossroads: 1. Absolute and limited government in the thought of John Fortescue; 2. Royal absolutism and the pursuit of uniformity; 3. Nationalizing the state, politicizing the nation; 4. One king, one law, one nation; 5. The myth of antiquity; 6. English exceptionalism revisited; Part VIII. Conclusions: Rekindling Ancient and Medieval Concepts: 1. Lessons from imperialism; 2. The opening and closure of political life; 3. We are bundles of hyphens; 4. New quests for solidarity; Bibliography.

'Anna Marisa Schön's book has helped me to think broadly and deeply about the history of political thought. … Elegantly written and clearly structured, the volume takes readers on a memorable tour of historiographical theories and the history of the concept of nation and nationality … Schön makes a case well worth considering, whether or not one is finally persuaded, that politics and political theory today can benefit from recalling early meanings of nation and situating the nation in its proper place, between the polis and empire, in theory and practice.' Mary M. Keys, Professor of Political Science, University of Notre Dame