Why has nationalism proved so durable? What are the roots of its appeal? This sharp and accessible book slices through the myths surrounding nationalism and provides an important new perspective on this perennial subject.

The book argues that: nationalism is persistent, not merely because of its specific ideological appeal, but because it expresses some of the major conflicts in modernity; nationalism reflects and reinforces four key trends in western social development: state formation, democratization, capitalism and the rationalization of culture; the forms of nationalism can be...

Why has nationalism proved so durable? What are the roots of its appeal? This sharp and accessible book slices through the myths surrounding nationalism and provides an important new perspective on this perennial subject.

The book argues that: nationalism is persistent, not merely because of its specific ideological appeal, but because it expresses some of the major conflicts in modernity; nationalism reflects and reinforces four key trends in western social development: state formation, democratization, capitalism and the rationalization of culture; the forms of nationalism can be...

This book provides a critical interpretation of the construction of Irish national identity in the longer perspective of history. Drawing on recent sociological theory, the authors demonstrate how national identity was invented and codified by a nationalist intelligentsia in the late nineteenth century. The trajectory of this national identity is traced as a process of crisis and contradiction. One of the central arguments is that the negative implications of Irish national identity have never been fully explored by social science.