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Title: The Ethnic Origins of Nations by Anthony D. Smith ISBN: 0-631-16169-4 Publisher: Blackwell Publishers Pub. Date: June, 1988 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $37.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)
Rating: 4
Summary: title says it all
Comment: In this book Anthony Smith does exactly what he sets out to do, namely show how important ethnic groups have been for setting the foundation of modern nations. Neglected by such modernists as Anderson, Hobsbawm and Kedourie, ethnic groups have been around for as long as the written word: Smith digs into the past and comes out with gobs of them in the ancient Middle East alone, some of them quite obscure: you definitely deserve a prize if you've heard of the Arameans, Hurrians, Urartians and Amorites.
Smith creates a whole typology about ethnic groups. He claims that all ethnic groups (or, as he calls them, 'ethnies', from the French for 'ethnic community') have several key aspects, including a name, common myth of descent, shared history and culture, territory and a sense of solidarity. They also fit into two main categories: lateral ethnies, which are based on an aristocracy and clerisy and rule over an indefinite but often large area, and the vertical ethnies, based on a urban, priestly or artisan class which rule over a small but clearly marked area.
Smith discusses the development of nations in the context of the French Revolution, when the modern concept of citizenship entered the picture, and here his narrative lets up a bit. Devoting most of the book to ethnicity, when he comes to discussing the two main types of modern nations - territorial (or non-ethnic) and ethnic - he spends too much time on the latter and not enough on former. This is an important flaw, since he thereby almost dismisses those nations like the U.S. which do not have an ethnic foundation and thus do not fit his theory.
Nonetheless this book is useful for the sole but important purpose of reinforcing the link between many nations and their ethnic pasts.
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Title: Nations and Nationalism since 1780 : Programme, Myth, Reality by E. J. Hobsbawm ISBN: 0521439612 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 29 October, 1992 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: Nations and Nationalism by Ernest Gellner ISBN: 0801492637 Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr Pub. Date: December, 1983 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson ISBN: 0860915468 Publisher: Verso Books Pub. Date: July, 1991 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Nationalism and Modernism: A Critical Survey of Recent Theories of Nations and Nationalism by Anthony D. Smith ISBN: 0415063418 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: November, 1998 List Price(USD): $33.95 |
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Title: Nationalism (Oxford Readers) by John Hutchinson, Anthony D. Smith ISBN: 0192892606 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: February, 1995 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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