At 12:15 AM 12/8/99 EST, you wrote:
>I disagree. Nationalism, as a cultural and political reality is a
Restoration
>phenomana. There are prior examples of group identification, but Nationalism
>is more than that. The Greeks conceived the worlk as being inhabited by
>themselves and barbarians ("babel speakers"), but that's not Nationalism.
>Nationalism, specifically is a phenomena that arose in those groups which
>were subsumed into larger political entities like the Hapburg empire, e.g
the
>Slavs and Italians. It as far more recent phenomena. Prior to the
>restoration, few groups associated themselves to other groups on the sole
>basesof ethnicity.
>
>john
>
You may disagree, but you are not right. Nationalism is *not* a recent
phenomenon. See the studies in _Concepts of National Identity in the Middle
Ages_, ed. by Simon Forde, Lesley Johnson, and Alan V. Murray (Leeds,
1995), particularly Anthony Smith's essay, "National identities: modern and
medieval?" What is "more recent" is just the way in which mobilization is
achieved in the name of national ideals. As a consequence, the degree of
"indoctrination," as many "more recent" examples clearly show, has no
parallel to any pre-modern societies, but that does not mean that before
Restoration (what exactly do you mean by that?) "few groups associated
themselves to other groups on the sole bases [sic] of ethnicity."
Florin
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