Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History (review)

This is an easy book to review. It will instantly take its place as the best general introduction to the subject. Still, it is worth underlining that the book has a particular character. It is less an attempt to reconstruct the social world of nationalism than an incisive, terminologically sophisticated analysis of the way in which a player assesses the state of play of the game to which he has contributed so much. Coverage of other positions is fair, interesting and very nearly exhaustive — albeit Smith really should take the work of David Laitin into account. If all this will attract readers, so too should the fact that Smith goes a little beyond the position that he has outlined in his recent spate of publications; differently put, we have in an encapsulated form Smith’s fine tuning of his own theory. The ethno-symbolism he now espouses is solidly Durkheimian, with the nation seen as being nothing less than sacred. But Weber is with us too: ur-nationalism seems to be that of the Jews, with very great admiration being shown to Ancient Judaism.