Rethinking Nationalism

David E. Smith is a professor of political Studies at the University of
Saskatchewan. He is the author of Building a Province: A History of
Saskatchewan in Documents and The Invisible Crown and Republican Option
in Canada, Past and Present.

Rethinking Nationalism is a big book on a topic that grows in importance
by the day. Demonstrations in the streets of Vienna against a
cobbled-together coalition government—one of whose partners is
dominated by a xenophobe—once again poses a dilemma for the liberal
media. Words or deeds? And in either case, how foul must they become
before there is a need to act?

With 20 contributors writing as many chapters for and against
nationalism, on its civic versus ethnic variants and on the theoretical
problems associated with nationalism’s study, plus pieces on
secession, boundaries, multiculturalism, aboriginal rights, and more,
Rethinking Nationalism is not just timely reading: it is essential
reading. Whether it will achieve the circulation it deserves is another
matter. This 700-page work began as Supplementary Volume 22 of the
Canadian Journal of Philosophy. Now published by a university press, it
has the potential to reach a larger audience but still not one
comparable to the seriousness of its subject.

The postmodern, technocratic, wireless world lauded incessantly in the
Western press has its uncertainties, not least about what happens to the
vast majority of humanity, who lead lives governed by premodern values
and tradition. Will the communications revolution that is under way
topple or construct walls? What is the relationship between national
sentiment and material conditions? Are shopping malls and McDonald’s
outlets handmaidens of secession and terrorism?

Contrary to the aphorism of the last century—that all politics is
local—perhaps in the new one it would be more accurate to say that all
politics is global. And if this is true, how can Northern Ireland,
Bosnia, or even Quebec persist? Or is this an instance in which to ask a
question is to answer it? Rethinking Nationalism has this disturbing
effect on its readers.