Mesela, dünyanın ilk milliyetçilik örneği olan İngiltere daha sonra fransız milliyetçiliğinin oluşumuna örnek olmuştur diyor. Sıraladığı örnekleri ayrı-ayrı olarak değil de birinin diğerine yol açması şeklinde açıklamış. Zira yazar milliyetçilik moderniteye giden yol olduğunu birçok kaynağa dayanarak güzelce anlatmış. Milliyetçilik konusuna yeni bir soluk getirmiş adeta. Liah Greenfeld hiç de fena iş çıkarmamış. Milliyetçilik konusunda okuduğum ikinci kitap (İlk okuduğum Benedict Anderson - Hayali Cemaatler) It is easy to miss because of the length, but she actually makes bold claims on the interpretations of the French Revolution, Marxism etc. She often takes the language and vocabulary used in political writings too much at face value (we don't really know the intentions of those in power or the consensus reached at the ground level regarding what constitutes the nation) and somewhat arbitrary (did she not have any prejudice in assessing the religious aspect in comparing Britain and France?). But there is not much consistency in the analytical method in the five cases. The introduction and Afterword, in which she explains the dialectic changes of the concept of nation, are convincing.

She argues that nationalism is a necessary condition for modernity (unlike the conventional 'modernization' theory which argues the other way around.) She looks at how the nation was defined (both as inclusive and exclusive) in each state in the political language. This is a very long, a bit messy account on European nationalisms. In 2004, she delivered the Gellner Lecture at the London School of Economics on the subject of 'Nationalism and the Mind,' launching the research connecting her previous work on modern culture to a new perspective on mental illness. Greenfeld has been a recipient of the UAB Ireland Distinguished Visiting Scholar Award, fellowships from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C., the Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem, Israel, and grants from Mellon, Olin, Earhart, The National Council for Soviet & East European Research, and The German Marshall Fund of the United States. She is the author of “Mind, Modernity, Madness: The Impact of Culture on Human Experience” (Harvard University Press, 2013) and other books about modern society and culture, including the ground-breaking “Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity” (Harvard University Press, 1992) and “The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth (Harvard University Press, 2001 Donald Kagan Best Book in European History Prize). Nowhere else are concepts like identity, anomie, and elites brought so refreshingly to life.Ĭalled “one of the most original thinkers of the current period” and “the great historian of Nationalism,” Liah Greenfeld is University Professor and Professor of Sociology, Political Science, and Anthropology at Boston University, and Distinguished Adjunct Professor at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. Nowhere else is the complex interaction of structural, cultural, and psychological factors so thoroughly explained. Nationalism is based on empirical data in four languages―legal documents period dictionaries memoirs correspondence literary works theological, political, and philosophical writings biographies statistics and histories. France, Germany, and Russia took the same, now marked, path, modifying nationalism in the process. The Americans followed, with no formed institutions to impede them. The theme, simple yet complex, suggests that England was the front-runner, with its earliest sense of self-conscious nationalism and its pragmatic ways it utilized existing institutions while transforming itself. A five-country study that spans five hundred years, this historically oriented work in sociology bids well to replace all previous works on the subject. It accomplished the great transformation from the old order to modernity it placed imagination above production, distribution, and exchange and it altered the nature of power over people and territories that shapes and directs the social and political world.

Nationalism is a movement and a state of mind that brings together national identity, consciousness, and collectivities.

Yoli greenfeld