Gellner Nations And Nationalism Analysis

Ernest Gellner’s book, Nations and Nationalism discusses the origins and progressions of nationalism throughout history. Gellner makes many different arguments about the development of nationalism and what is needed for such development, while simultaneously shutting down arguments of other scholars and historians with whom he disagrees. Particularly Elie Kedourie, who is on the receiving end of many of Gellner’s arguments. Gellner defines the violations of nationalism, explains why culture militates against nationalism, that industrialism comes before nationalism, goes over the theories of the development of nationalism, outlines the different forms of nationalism, and even makes predictions about the future of nationalism. In Nations and …show more content…
Nationalism is something best described with examples, many of which I will use to get the points of this paper across effectively. Nationalism is that feeling you have when you’re at a baseball game, and the national anthem is playing. You see the flag flying, and hear your fellow Americans singing along as they salute the flag, hands over hearts. Your heart beats with pride, and maybe you even shed a tear. You think to yourself, I am proud to be an American. This is an example of nationalism. You have a commonality amongst all the people in that stadium, in your nation, you are all Americans. The patriots had feelings of nationalism - a common feeling that urged them to revolt against the crown which ruled over them, taxing them unfairly. In a common quest for the freedom of religion and the right to being taxed fairly, these patriots joined together to form a nation. Now that we have a basic understanding of what nationalism is, we should go over the violations of nationalism. In order to have nationalism, you cannot be so strict with your definition that you only represent a select few, but one can also not be so broad that too many people are represented. For example, one could not say