Abstract
According to Pollard, ancient history is essentially that of the city state, and medieval history that of the universal world state. He sees modern history as the history of national states whose most ‘prominent characteristic’ is nationality.1 The analysis of the national state as a modern phenomenon is a major concern of both history and the social sciences,2 although there is considerable confusion over its origins. Classical political philosophers have mystified the phenomenon, either by trying to trace back the origins of modern states to differences of climate or geography (Montesquieu) or to language communities (Herder, Fichte), or to what is made out to be a common history and culture, or even to the ‘Will of God’ (Burke, Mazzini). More modern authors, such as Treitschke, Maurras and Le Bon, have tried to explain the state in terms of biological and racial categories.3 None of these authors, however, is able to explain why it was not until the eighteenth century that the nation became the dominant political form in Europe, although linguistic, cultural and supposedly racial differences had come into existence long before. This study will not concern itself with speculative and unproductive interpretations,4 and the analysis of the European nation state and of the development of nationalism in Europe will be based upon those few authors who have succeeded in making a precise historical definition of the matter under discussion.
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Notes
A. F. Pollard, Factors in Modern History (London, 1907) p. 3.
Koppel S. Pinson has compiled a comprehensive bibliography to 1935: A Bibliographical Introduction to Nationalism (New York, 1935). For later research, see Karl W. Deutsch, An Interdisciplinary Bibliography on Nationalism 1935–1953 (Cambridge, 1956). Deutsch gives a survey of the literature up to 1965 in the introduction to the second edition of his Nationalism and Social Communication; An Inquiry into the Foundations of Nationality, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), pp. 7–14. Hannah Vogt has published a selection of texts on nationalism in political philosophy in Nationalismus gestern und heute (Opladen, 1967).
Details of different interpretations of nationalism are given by Louis L. Snyder, The Meaning of Nationalism (New Brunswick, 1954),
and Eugen Lemberg, ‘Nationalismus: Definition, Tendenzen, Theorien’, Moderne Welt, VIII (1967) No. 3, pp. 317–33.
On this see Boyd C. Shafer, Nationalism: Myth and Reality (New York, 1955) pp. 36 f. Shafer classifies the mystification of the nation and of nationalism in political philosophy into ‘metaphysical myths’, ‘physical myths’, and ‘cultural myths’; see ibid., pp. 13–56.
On this see Karl W. Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication, pp. 15–28, and Shafer, op. cit., passim; also Heinz O. Ziegler, Die moderne Nation: Ein Beitrag zur politischen Soziologie (Tübingen, 1931) pp. 27–54.
Hans Kohn, The Idea of Nationalism: A Study in us Origins and Background (New York, 1945) p. 188.
F. Engels, Über den Verfall des Feudalismus und das Aufkommen der Bourgeoisie, in Marx-Engels-Werke, vol. XXI (Berlin, 1962) pp. 392 ff, here p. 397. On the relationship between sovereignty and kingship during the course of nation formation in Europe,
see Joseph R. Stryer, ‘The Historical Experience of Nation-Building in Europe’, in Karl W. Deutsch and William J. Foltz (eds), Nation-Building (New York, 1963) pp. 17–26.
The emergence of nationalities under kingship has been researched by H. Munro Chadwick, Nationalities in Europe and the Growth of National Ideologies, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1966) Chap. V, pp. 91–113.
J. Habermas, Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit, Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Geselleschaft, 2nd ed. (Berlin-Neuwied, 1965) p. 28.
W. Euchner, Naturrecht und Politik bei John Locke (Frankfurt/Main, 1969) pp. 198 ff.
J. Habermas, ‘Naturrecht und Revolution’, in Theorie und Praxis: Sozialphilosophische Studien (Berlin, 1963) pp. 52 ff.; here p. 68. Eng. transl. ‘Natural Law and Revolution’, in Theory and Practice (London, 1974) pp. 82–120; here p. 93.
On the structure of the volonté générale see I. Fetscher, Rousseaus politische Philosophie; zur Geschichte des demokratischen Freiheitsbegriffs (Berlin, 1960) pp. 111–26.
Ziegler, op. cit., p. 64. On the question of terminology: following Ziegler, nation is seen only in terms of a form of political organisation. People, nationhood, or more accurately nationality is seen as the formation of a group with a certain cohesion, though not necessarily organised into a national state. W. Sulzbach, ‘Zur Definition und Psychologie von “Nation” und Nationalbewußtsein’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, III (1962) No. 2, 139–58, discusses the terminological confusion in the literature about nationalism. Sulzbach comments on the inadequacy of the interpretation which explains the nation in terms of common features of language and literature etc. For Sulzbach the state as a power structure is a constituent element of the nation. However, he goes on to interpret the genesis of the nation and of nationalism in entirely subjective terms. The ideal of national sovereignty first came into the minds of a few individuals. It then obtained more widespread support. Finally it became common property through education and propaganda.’ (p. 154) For a criticism of Sulzbach’s interpretation of nationalism, see G. Kress and K. J. Gantzel ‘Pseudowissenschaftliches zur Nationalismus-Diskussion’, Neue Politische Literatur, XV (1970) No. 3, 394–6.
Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundriß der verstehenden Soziologie, 2 vols (Cologne and Berlin, 1962) vol. II, p. 675. Eng. transl., Economy and Society, 3 vols (New York, 1968) vol. II, p. 922. However, Weber sees the nation in purely psychological terms: it exists only in the mind.
K. Marx and F. Engels, ‘Manifest der kommunistischen Partei’, in Marx-Engels-Werke, 3rd ed., vol. IV (Berlin, 1964) pp. 459–93, here pp. 466–7; Eng. transl., ‘The Communist Manifesto’, in L. S. Feuer (ed.), Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy (London, 1969) pp. 43–82; here p. 53.
Cf. Kohn, op. cit., p. 191. Also K. D. Bracher’s article ‘Der Nationalstaat’, in K. D. Bracher and E. Fraenkel (eds), Das Fischer-Lexicon, vol. II, Staat und Politik (Frankfurt/Main, 1962) pp. 198–204; here p. 198 ff.; also Hermann Lübbe, Säkularisierung, Geschichte eines ideenpolitischen Begriffs (Freiburg and Munich, 1965).
Pollard, op. cit., p. 9, sees the Reformation as the beginning of the disintegration of Christian universalism. Salo Wittmayex Baron, Modern Nationalism and Religion (New York and London, 1947) p. 7, considers that ‘Modern nationalism has displaced religion as the chief factor in human group relationships … religion, now displaced from its position of primacy, continued to influence profoundly national life both through the various state controlled, state subsidised or even state-separated churches and through their supra-national, non-political ethical teachings.’
Emmanuel Sieyès, Qu’est-ce que le Tiers Etat?, ed. R. Zapped (Geneva, 1970) p. 126. Eng. transl., What is the Third Estate? (London, 1963) p. 58.
This undiscriminating theory is held by, e.g., J. L. Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (London, 1952) pp. 38–49.
Eva Hoffmann-Linke, Zwischen Nationalismus und Demokratie, Gestalten der Französischen Vorrevolution (Munich and Berlin, 1927) p. 3.
Friedrich Engels. ‘The State of Germany’, The Northern Star, 25 October 1845; Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works, vol. VI (London, 1976) p. 19.
C. J. H. Hayes, The Historical Evolution of Modern Nationalism (New York, 1950).
K. O. Freiherr von Aretin, ‘Uber die Notwendigkeit kritischer Distanzierung vom Nationsbegriff in Deutschland nach 1945’, in H. Bolewski (ed.), Nation und Nationalismus (Stuttgart, 1967) pp. 26–45, here p. 29. In ‘Das Problem des deutschen Nationalstaates’, Politische Vierteljahresschrijt, III (1962) No. 2, 159–86, W. Sauer shows that the national state in the advanced countries of Europe ‘has a clearly democratic emphasis, which is somewhat distorted in the German version’ (p. 160). The French and the British national states both sprang out of a bourgeois-democratic revolution: in Germany this revolution failed, ‘which is why the European synthesis of nationalism and democracy was never achieved here’ (p. 161).
C. Maurras, quoted by E. Nolte, Der Faschismus in seiner Epoche, 2nd ed. (Munich, 1965) p. 146. Eng. transl., Three Faces of Fascism (New York and Toronto, 1969) p. 144.
See also William C. Buthman, The Rise of Integral Nationalism in France, with Special Reference to the Ideas and Activities of Charles Maurras (New York, 1939). See also Wittmayer Baron, op. cit., pp. 61–68. On the general subject of integral nationalism,
see E. Lemberg, Geschichte des Nationalismus in Europe (Stuttgart, 1950) pp. 267 ff.
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, revised ed. (London, 1967) pp. 267–302.
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Tibi, B. (1997). The Origins of Nation Formation and Nationalism in Europe. In: Arab Nationalism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230376540_2
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