The Ethnic Origins

of Nations
Anthony D. Smith

Blackwell
Publishing
 Contents

Preface ix
Note to Maps xi
Maps xii
Introduction 1

1 Are nations modern? 6

'Modernists* and 'primordialists' 7
Ethnie, myths and symbols 13
The durability of ethnic communities 16

Part I Ethnic communities in pre-modern eras

2 Foundations of ethnic community 21

The dimensions of ethnie 22
Some bases of ethnic formation 32
Structure and persistence of ethnie 41

3 Ethnie and ethnicism in history 47

Uniqueness and exclusion 47
Ethnic resistance and renewal 50
External threat and ethnic response 54
Two types of ethnic mythomoteur 57

4 Class and ethnie in agrarian societies 69

The problem of 'social penetration· 70
Military mobilization and ethnic consciousness 73
Two types of ethnie 76
Ethnic polities 89
viii Contents

5 Ethnic survival and dissolution 92

Location and sovereignty 93
Demographic and cultural continuity 96
Dissolution of ethnie 98
Ethnic survival 105
Ethnic socialization and religious renewal 119

Part II Ethnie and nations in the modern era

6 The formation of nations 129

Western revolutions 130
Territorial and ethnic nations 134
Nation-formation 138
The ethnic model 144
Ethnic solidarity or political citizenship? 149

7 From ethnie to nation 153

Politicization of ethnie 154
The new priesthood 157
Autarchy and territorialization 161
Mobilization and inclusion 165
The new imagination 169

8 Legends and landscapes 174

Nostalgia and posterity 174
The sense of 'the past' 177
Romantic nationalism as an 'historical drama' 179
Poetic spaces: the uses of landscape 183
Golden ages: the uses of history 191
Myths and nation-building 200

9 The genealogy of nations 209

Parmenideans and Heraclitans 210
The 'antiquity' of nations 212
Transcending ethnicity? 214
A world of small nations? 217
Ethnic mobilization and global security 221

Notes 227
Bibliography 278
Index 303