Nations before the Nation-State
Between City-State and Empire from Antiquity to the Present
Published on 21. November 2024
Book
Hardback
232 pages
978-1-009-44121-6 (ISBN)
Description
Throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, thinkers understood nations as communities defined by common language, culture, and descent, and sharing strong bonds of belonging and solidarity. Even so, they did not assume that nations would also be appropriate units of government. The recovery of this historical understanding, in turn, yields valuable insights for contemporary political dilemmas. Nations Before the Nation-State offers the first extended study of the idea of the nation in ancient and medieval political thought. It recovers a pre-modern conception of the nation as a cultural and linguistic community, rather than a political association, and examines better means for thinking about nationhood. Offering a historic perspective from which to address challenges of nationalism, this book engages with debates on multiculturalism, liberal nationalism, and constitutional patriotism and argues that contemporary political dilemmas can be resolved more organically by recovering modes of thinking that have resolved similar tensions for centuries.
Reviews / Votes
'Anna Marisa Schoen's book has helped me to think broadly and deeply about the history of political thought. ... Elegantly written and clearly structured, the volume takes readers on a memorable tour of historiographical theories and the history of the concept of nation and nationality ... Schoen makes a case well worth considering, whether or not one is finally persuaded, that politics and political theory today can benefit from recalling early meanings of nation and situating the nation in its proper place, between the polis and empire, in theory and practice.' Mary M. Keys, Professor of Political Science, University of Notre Dame 'In this monumental study, Anna Marisa Schoen offers an ambitious vision of the emergence of the idea of nationhood in the West ... The shibboleth among scholars is that it is meaningless or even dangerously misguided to speak of a 'nation' prior to some precise moment in modern European history ... Schoen demonstrates that this narrative embraces a fundamental category error, namely, that the idea of 'nation' cannot be separated from the 'nation-state' or a principle of territorial sovereignty ... Schoen's analyses are well-informed in terms of primary sources as well as up-to-date secondary literature. Her accomplishment is singular in both its depth and breadth.' Cary J. Nederman, Professor of Political Science, Texas A&M UniversityMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
533 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-009-44121-6 (9781009441216)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Anna Marisa Schoen
Nations before the Nation-State
Between City-State and Empire from Antiquity to the Present
Book
11/2024
Cambridge University Press
€32.70
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Anna Marisa Schoen is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Department of Political Science at Duke University. Her research focuses on medieval political thought, and questions surrounding nationalism, national pluralism, and empire. She has co-translated J. G. Fichte's work on the French Revolution (2021) and her work has appeared in History of Political Thought, British Journal of the History of Philosophy, and Democratic Theory.
Content
Part I. Introduction: A Plan for Rethinking the Nation: 1. The nation-state paradigm; 2. A project of conceptual recovery; 3. Political imagination; 4. Liberal multiculturalism and constitutional patriotism; 5. Selection of sources and overview of the book; 6. Some preliminary conclusions; Part II. What Is a Nation? A Brief Historiography of Theories of the Nation: 1. Romantic beginnings; 2. Classical modernism and the state; 3. The modernist bogeyman; 4. Ethno-symbolism and its critics; 5. Getting our history less wrong; Part III. A Tale of Two Fatherlands: Ancient Conceptions of Nationhood: 1. Ancient sources of Hellenicity; 2. Greek patriotism; 3. The bonds of humanity; 4. Roman citizenship and legal pluralism; 5. Nations in the vulgate; 6. Religion, Law, and Peoplehood in Biblical Judaea; Part IV. Post-Roman Transitions: National Identity in the Wake of the Empire: 1. Cassiodorus' imperial propaganda; 2. Ethnonyms and etymologies; 3. Isidore's appropriation of empire; 4. Historiography as political theory; Part V. Medieval Imperialism: National Diversity and Universal Order: 1. World government and its alternatives; 2. Dante imagines the nation; 3. Humanity's intellectual unity; 4. Difference as punishment, difference as pleasure; 5. Consent as the foundation of empire; Part VI. Nationality and the Medieval 'State' in France: 1. Medieval international relations; 2. Dubois' multinational vision for the holy land; 3. A pre-national defense of political particularism; 4. Participatory citizenship in the footsteps of marsiglio of Padua; 5. Love for king and country; Part VII. The Nation at a Crossroads: 1. Absolute and limited government in the thought of John Fortescue; 2. Royal absolutism and the pursuit of uniformity; 3. Nationalizing the state, politicizing the nation; 4. One king, one law, one nation; 5. The myth of antiquity; 6. English exceptionalism revisited; Part VIII. Conclusions: Rekindling Ancient and Medieval Concepts: 1. Lessons from imperialism; 2. The opening and closure of political life; 3. We are bundles of hyphens; 4. New quests for solidarity; Bibliography.