Includes bibliographical references (pages 357-361) and index.

I. The question of definition. Qu'est-ce qu'une nation? / Ernest Renan -- The nation / Joseph Stalin -- The nation / Max Weber -- Nationalism and social communication / Karl W. Deutsch -- Primordial and civic ties / Clifford Geertz -- The nation as power-container / Anthony Giddens -- A nation is a nation, is a state, is an ethnic group, is a ... / Walker Connor -- II. Theories of nationalism. Nationalism and self-determination / Elie Kedourie -- Nationalism and modernization / Ernest Gellner -- Nationalism and high cultures / Ernest Gellner -- The maladies of development / Tom Nairn -- The nation as invented tradition / Eric Hobsbawm -- �Elite competition and nation-formation / Paul R. Brass -- Imagined communities / Benedict Anderson -- A socio-biological perspective / Pierre Van Den Berghe -- The sources of nationalist ideology / John Breuilly -- The crisis of dual legitimation / Anthony D. Smith -- Cultural nationalism and moral regeneration / John Hutchinson -- III. The rise of nations. Old and new nations / Hugh Seton-Watson -- Regnal sentiments and medieval communities / Susan Reynolds -- Nations before nationalism / John Armstrong -- The origins of nations / Anthony D. Smith -- When is a nation? / Walker Connor -- IV. Nationalism in Europe. Western and Eastern nationalisms / Hans Kohn -- Types of European nationalism / Liah Greenfeld -- Nationalism in Eastern Europe / Peter Sugar -- The rise of ethno-linguistic nationalisms / Eric Hobsbawm -- Ethno-regional movements in the West / Michael Hechter and Margaret Levi -- V. Nationalism outside Europe. Creole pioneers of nationalism / Benedict Anderson -- Dark gods and their rites / Elie Kedourie -- National history and its exclusions / Partha Chatterjee -- Islam and nationalism / Francis Robinson -- Ideologies of delayed development / Mary Matossian -- The colonial construction of African nations / Crawford Young -- State and nation in African thought / Benyamin Neurberger -- Economic nationalism in new states / Harry Johnson -- VI. Nationalism and the international system. Three phases of nationalism / Edward H. Carr -- The rise of the nation-state system / Alfred Cobban -- Europe and the international state system / Charles Tilly -- War and nations / Michael Howard -- Ethnic conflict in the West / Arend Lijphart -- The logic of secessions / Donald Horowitz -- Irredentist and secessionist challenges / James Mayall -- Towards a post-communist world / John Armstrong -- VII. Beyond nationalism? Ethnic nationalism and post-industrialism / Anthony H. Richmond -- Reasserting the polyethnic norm / William H. McNeill -- Narrating the nation / Homi Bhabha -- Women and the nation-state / Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davis -- Europeanness : a new cultural battlefield? / Philip Schlesinger.

Nationalism is one of the most powerful forces in the modern world, yet its study has only recently gained popularity. This reader gives historical depth to the recent debates on nationalism and traces the development of thought on nationalism across a range of issues.