First Published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Nationalism is pivotal to any understanding of contemporary politics, but our conception of it as a historical and contemporary phenomenon remains fragmentary and nebulous. In Nations, Identity, Power, George Schopflin analyzes the contradictions inherent in our understanding of nationalism in order to fashion a new intellectual synthesis.

In particular he questions why nations in the West are able to live with the nation as the legitimate space for democratic institutions, whereas in the post-communist world, especially in Eastern Europe, ethnicity is preeminent. Schöpflin...

Conceptions of nationalism as a historical and contemporary phenomenon remain fragmentary in the late-1990s. This text analyzes the contraditions inherent in the general understanding of nationalism in order to fashion a new intellectual synthesis.