Nations and Nationalism

Front Cover
Cornell University Press, 1983 - History - 150 pages

This thoughtful and penetrating book, addressed to political scientists, sociologists, historians, and anthropologists, interprets nationalism in terms of its social roots, which it locates in industrial social organization. Professor Gellner asserts here that a society's affluence and economic growth depend on innovation, occupational mobility, the effectiveness of the mass media, universal literacy, and an all-embracing educational system based on a shared, standard idiom. These factors, taken together, govern the relationship between culture and the state. Political units that do not conform to the principle, "one state, one culture" feel the strain in the form of nationalistic activity.

 

Contents

Culture in Agrarian Society
8
Industrial Society
19
The Transition to an Age of Nationalism
39
What is a Nation?
53
Social Entropy and Equality in Industrial Society
63
A Typology of Nationalisms
88
The Future of Nationalism
110
Nationalism and Ideology
123
Conclusion
137
Copyright

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About the author (1983)

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.