This book is an excellent, comprehensive account of the ways in which nations and nationhood have evolved over time. Successful in hardback, it is now available in paperback for a student audience.

This book is an excellent, comprehensive account of the ways in which nations and nationhood have evolved over time. Successful in hardback, it is now available in paperback for a student audience.

A groundbreaking study of the foundations of nationalism, exposing its antiquity, strong links with ethnicity and roots in human nature.

Ethnosymbolism offers a distinct and innovative approach to the study of nations and nationalism. It focuses on the role of ethnic myths, historical memories, symbols and traditions in the creation and maintenance of the collective identity of modern nations. This book explores the different aspects of the ethnosymbolic approach to the study of ethnicity, nationality and nationalism.Nationalism and Ethnosymbolism first introduces the main theoretical considerations that have arisen in nationalism studies in the past two decades. It then presents a collection of case studies covering music and poetry, ethnosymbolism in antiquity, and a wide variety of nations and regions. Areas discussed include Eastern Europe and Russia, the Middle East, the Far East and India, Africa, and the Americas.Overall the book offers a defence of the methodology of ethnosymbolism and a demonstration of its explanatory power.

In this thought-provoking new book, Anthony Smith analyses key debates between historians and social scientists on the role of nations and nationalism in history. In a wide-ranging analysis of the work of historians, sociologists, political scientists and others, he argues that there are three key issues which have shaped debates in this field: first, the nature and origin of nations and nationalism; second, the antiquity or modernity of nations and nationalism; and third, the role of nations and nationalism in historical, and especially recent, social change. Anthony Smith provides an incisive critique of the debate between modernists, perennialists and primordialists over the origins, development and contemporary significance of nations and nationalism. Drawing on a wide range of examples from antiquity and the medieval epoch, as well as the modern world, he develops a distinctive ethnosymbolic account of nations and nationalism. This important book by one of the world's leading authorities on nationalism and ethnicity will be of particular interest to students and scholars in history, sociology and politics.