The Ethnic Origins

of Nations
Anthony D. Smith

Blackwell
Publishing

Contents

Preface

ix

Note to Maps

xi

Maps

xii

Introduction

1 Are nations modern?

'Modernists* and 'primordialists'

Ethnie, myths and symbols
The durability of ethnic communities

7
13
16

Part I Ethnic communities in pre-modern eras

2 Foundations of ethnic community
The dimensions of ethnie
Some bases of ethnic formation
Structure and persistence of ethnie
3 Ethnie and ethnicism in history

21
22
32
41
47

Uniqueness and exclusion

Ethnic resistance and renewal
External threat and ethnic response
Two types of ethnic mythomoteur

47
50
54
57

Class and ethnie in agrarian societies

69

The problem of 'social penetration

Military mobilization and ethnic consciousness
Two types of ethnie
Ethnic polities

70
73
76
89

viii
5

Contents
Ethnic survival and dissolution
Location and sovereignty
Demographic and cultural continuity
Dissolution of ethnie
Ethnic survival
Ethnic socialization and religious renewal
Part II

92
93
96
98
105
119

Ethnie and nations in the modern era

The formation of nations

129

Western revolutions
Territorial and ethnic nations
Nation-formation
The ethnic model
Ethnic solidarity or political citizenship?

130
134
138
144
149

From ethnie to nation

153

Politicization of ethnie
The new priesthood
Autarchy and territorialization
Mobilization and inclusion
The new imagination

154
157
161
165
169

Legends and landscapes

174

Nostalgia and posterity

The sense of 'the past'
Romantic nationalism as an 'historical drama'
Poetic spaces: the uses of landscape
Golden ages: the uses of history
Myths and nation-building

174
177
179
183
191
200

The genealogy of nations

209

Parmenideans and Heraclitans

The 'antiquity' of nations
Transcending ethnicity?
A world of small nations?
Ethnic mobilization and global security

210
212
214
217
221

Notes

227

Bibliography

278

Index

303