The Washington Post reviews this new book:
One thing that had seemed to go out of favor in recent decades was irredentism, the urge for states to annex the territory of their neighbors. Nationalist leaders in recent decades tended to build walls against the outside world, not conquer it. That trend was dramatically interrupted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and self-proclaimed annexation of territory in the east of that country. In Israel, an increasingly influential political movement seeks to not simply occupy the Palestinian territories but formally annex them. A globally catastrophic war sparked by China’s desire to “reunify” with Taiwan may loom on the horizon.
As for kinship as the basis for nationhood, there are many peoples who share the same identity, language and culture yet do not have their own state. Think of the Kurds, for instance, oppressed almost everywhere; or, more contentiously, the Catalans, who are oppressed nowhere, contrary to the claims of their more florid politicians. Mr. Storm points out that the United Nations currently has 193 member-states, only a fraction of which are ethnically or culturally homogeneous. (As a dinner-table exercise, readers might like to name a dozen and see how far they get.) In truth, the conventional understanding of the nation as a group of people united by common descent does not reflect reality.
Dutch professor Eric Storm writes in this new book:
* Religious differences between Christians, Jews, Muslims, and heathens were much more important than those between “nations,” and the identarian boundaries between them were much sharper. Christianity was seen as a fundamentally coherent unity. Both the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire cherished the Roman heritage and had universal pretensions. This entailed a bipolar relationship with the non – Christian world, which was seen as essentially inferior. 20 The view was not very different in the Muslim empires — which drew a sharp distinction between the “territory of Islam” and the “territory of war” — or in China. 21
Due to the feudal system, political and military authority was highly fragmented in Europe. Social and legal differences were very pronounced, and members of the different social groups — nobles, clerics, burghers, and peasants — behaved and dressed in distinct ways, which were often codified in sumptuary laws. Often, peasants and serfs were not even regarded as fully human; they were depicted as degraded, dark – skinned creatures who were ignorant of the true faith and therefore barely distinguishable from animals. 22 “Nations,” as a consequence, were not stable, fixed entities; instead, they were categorized according to circumstance. Moreover, the often quite vague “ethnic” boundaries rarely overlapped with state borders, which in this period were equally fluid. Social and religious cleavages were much more pronounced, and these often coincided with differences in rights, language, and behavior.
The rise of centralized states in Europe from the late medieval period onward slowly undermined the supremacy of the pope and the emperor and seriously weakened the territorial power of the landed nobility, leading to a new, multipolar state system. The process of state centralization started around the twelfth century, when improved infrastructures and the growing use of written communication increased the center’s hold over local affairs. Military innovations, however, were critical…In Europe, the state – building process was further reinforced by both the Reformation and the age of exploration. The sixteenth – century Reformation disrupted the fundamental unity of Western Christianity, and the wars of religion finished off the universal aspirations of the Holy Roman Empire. Principalities that went over to Protestantism dismantled the independent power of the Catholic Church by confiscating monastic properties and creating new state churches, as in England and the Lutheran parts of Europe. Although Catholic monarchs did respect the earthly possessions of the Church, they also succeeded in increasing their control over the clergy. At about the same time, the exploration of the sea routes to Asia and the “discovery” and conquest of the Americas strengthened the European states on the borders of the Atlantic, which now became the most dynamic part of the Old World. Long – distance trade (which was largely organized through chartered companies) and colonial settlement required protection by the navy and, in many instances, the presence of armed forces as well, so state support was crucial. 24
As a consequence, states had to increase their fiscal resources, which also implied more control over their territory, both at the borders and in the interior. Many states began to adopt mercantilist policies, supporting domestic industries and shipping while reducing internal tariffs, all with the goal of increasing the country’s wealth. Internal communications were improved by the construction of new roads. Maps increasingly showed state borders, and fortifications were built to protect the territory of the state. To this end, toward the end of the seventeenth century, Louis XIV, the French “Sun King” who became the embodiment of royal absolutism, ordered Vauban to construct hundreds of new fortresses to defend the borders of the kingdom.* In most parts of Europe, the identification of the inhabitants with the state was on the rise [in the 17th Century].
* the division of humanity into peoples with different, ill – defined characteristics was widely acknowledged.
* Almost everywhere, the clergy used a dead but sacred language for liturgic purposes: Latin for Catholicism, Church Slavonic or Byzantine Greek for Orthodox Christianity, Hebrew for Judaism, Classical Arabic for Islam, Sanskrit for Hinduism, and Pali or Classical Tibetan for Buddhism. Often, these languages were also used in the scientific realm, in courts, and in the state administration. In Europe, Latin was the main language of international diplomacy until it was largely displaced by French during the seventeenth century. In many cases, monarchs and aristocrats spoke a prestigious literary language. Thus, thanks to the glamorous court of Versailles, French became the dominant language of the polite classes in Western Europe, while Persian had a comparable role in large parts of the Islamic world and Chinese was predominant in East Asia.
* In Muslim and Orthodox areas, the printing press was ignored or prohibited, and primary education was not a priority. Here, literacy rates remained below 10 percent.
* Sacred script languages were considered “emanations from reality” and therefore an “inseparable part” of the divine truth, and this was not the case with the new standardized vernacular languages.
* In salons and coffeehouses throughout Europe and the Americas [in the 18th Century], all kinds of issues were debated among a growing number of well – educated people. Thus a new egalitarian and meritocratic sphere came into being, where the strength of a person’s argument no longer depended on their social standing or religious authority, but on the argument’s coherence and persuasiveness. At first, these public debates were concerned primarily with cultural, scientific, and philosophical topics, but politics was increasingly a subject of interest.
* Nation – states and national citizenship did not exist before the end of the eighteenth century.
* The first Naturalization Act, which was adopted in 1790, was even more explicit, awarding U.S. nationality only to “free white people” of “good character.” In most British and French colonial assemblies the Indigenous population was excluded, as were slaves and, in most instances, free people of color.
* the legal separation between the European metropole (a nation – state with a constitution) and the overseas colonies, which had “special,” more restrictive laws, would become the dominant model in the nineteenth and large parts of the twentieth century. As a consequence, the invention of the nation – state replaced the legislative pluralism of the ancien r é gime with legal equality and written constitutions in the metropolitan areas. At the same time, it hardened the boundaries between insiders (mostly white male property owners) and outsiders (women, people of color, Native Americans, and foreigners) and between metropole and colonies.
* In general, the inhabitants of the countryside were more reluctant to accept the new revolutionary regime, and in many instances opposed it outright. Michael Broers argues that in many parts of Europe and Spanish America the revolution degenerated into a civil war between well – educated urban elites and more conservative rural folk. Although peasants welcomed the repeal of seigneurial dues, many resented the attacks on the monarchy and organized religion.
* Before 1789 [in France], one’s social position was largely defined by an individual’s standing and legal status. Thus, the clergy, the nobility, burghers of a city, members of a guild, free farmers, and the rest of the population were subject to different rules… With the introduction of a constitution based on legal equality, all inhabitants of France suddenly were subject to the same rules, and there was one tax regime for all. This meant that all Frenchmen became equal and that one’s nationality — or one’s membership of the demos — now was more important than social identities.
* The main argument for denying citizenship rights to certain populations was that they were not “civilized” enough. This was not just the view of intellectuals and politicians from the West; statesmen on the European periphery also claimed that the populations of their countries were not yet ready for legal equality and political participation. Although Tsar Alexander had given liberal constitutions to the Grand Duchy of Finland and the Kingdom of Poland, he thought that the Russians did not yet have the capacity to be governed by constitutional means. Reshid Pasha, the driving force in the early phase of the Tanzimat reforms, argued that the Ottoman population was too “ignorant” to be governed by a parliament and constitution. In Egypt, Mehmed Ali similarly reasoned that he could not copy Western laws because they were designed for “enlightened and civilized people” and were not suitable for his own subjects, whom he compared to “wild beasts.” More than thirty years later, his grandson Ismael mentioned the beneficial effects of a parliamentary regime in “civilized countries” at the inauguration of the Chamber of Delegates (which had only consultatory powers), implying that the Egyptians had not yet reached this stage. Even in Liberia, the Black settlers excluded the Indigenous population from the suffrage because they were not yet “civilized.”
* The main victims of the age of revolutions — monarchs, nobles, and clergy — were not very keen to promote or even accept the nation – state model, which had led to the abolition of their ancient privileges.
* the lower classes and especially the peasants were much less receptive to the nationalist message, nor were they impassioned by constitutions and elections.
* During the Romantic era, most thinkers continued to accept the Enlightenment view that progress was possible, but they clearly rejected the mechanical worldview of the enlightened authors, which emphasized rationalism, universalism, and linear progress. Instead, time and space were profoundly historicized, and individual inspiration, imagination, and creativity replaced the emphasis on classical composure. Romantic authors — many of whom came from German lands, where the universities became intellectual breeding grounds — focused on international differences, arguing that communities had adapted themselves over time to the particular geographic and climatic conditions of their natural environments. However, humans also adjusted their natural surroundings to their own needs, refined the solutions found by their ancestors, and passed the cultural forms they developed to their descendants. Thus, over the centuries, each people or nation — defined, following Herder, as language communities — had developed its own personality and culture.
* By taking the nation as a container in which developments were studied, historians nationalized the past, and each nation seemed to have a unique character and to follow its own special path.
* Artists shifted their attention away from religious topics and classical antiquity to portray crucial events in the nation’s history, filled with antiquarian details. The huge images typically were highly theatrical, focused on the central hero, and had a didactic message.
* The new Romantic conception of the nation, which understood the nation as a historically grown language community with a shared culture, had advanced considerably by 1848. It now heavily influenced the perception of the countryside and the view of the past, leading to the appreciation of vernacular languages and folklore, the proliferation of nationalist literary and artistic works, a new focus on the national past, the creation of museums to exhibit the highlights of the nation’s heritage, the restoration of ancient monuments, new commemorative practices, and the construction of new buildings with clear nationalist connotations. These changes mainly affected the realm of high culture, while contributing to the naturalization of the existence of linguistically defined nations among well – educated people in the Western world.
The political ideal of a state that primarily served the nation, in which the citizens were equal before the law and could actively control the government, also lived on and played a major mobilizing role during the Revolutions of 1848. However, now it would be combined with the new Romantic conception linking nations to language and culture. Mazzini, probably the best – known nationalist of his time, thought that culturally defined nations had been created by God, that everyone naturally belonged to one of them, and that if all nations had their own democratic state, there would be no more need for foreign aggression.
* The humiliating defeat put the Qing Empire in the same position as the Ottoman Empire and the Russian tsar after the Crimean War. Basically, there were three options for dealing with the new situation: nativism, authoritarian reform, or Westernization. The nativist option meant rejecting all foreign influences. This was usually religiously motivated, and in times of crisis it often resonated with xenophobic sentiments among the general population. The second, more realistic option was a course of moderate reform focusing particularly on areas that seemed most urgent, such as modernizing the armed forces, while reinforcing the powers of the central state. This could be done in a rather technocratic way, or by dressing innovations in a traditional guise and reinforcing religious and monarchical feelings among the population. Authoritarian reform was the favored option of most Eurasian empires. The third option, favored mostly by a small group of progressive intellectuals and officials, was to thoroughly Westernize not just the army and the administration but also society. Many argued that a strong state was possible only when supported by a modern civic society. According to them, mass education, citizen rights, and political participation should be a vital part of any reform package.
* The bulk of the population was opposed, indifferent, or at best lukewarm vis – à – vis nationalist demands. In times of crisis, peasants, artisans, and laborers could be stirred against unpopular rulers, local officials or tax collectors, but many of the reforms related to the creation of the nation – state, such as higher taxes, conscription, and the abolishment of the guilds and common lands, were met with outright hostility. The extension of the suffrage made the issue of the national awareness of the masses and their loyalty to the fatherland all the more urgent. As a consequence, nationalist intellectuals and politicians began to target them, which could be done in two different ways, depending on whether nationalists were state – seeking or already had an established nation – state.
* Nevertheless, inspired by the impact of Darwin’s theory of evolution and the rise of racial theories, differences between societies were increasingly cast in biological terms, in terms of innate intellectual and physical capacities. The same was true for the way the underclass was viewed; education would not be able to overcome congenital deficiencies. According to social Darwinists like Francis Galton and Ernst Haeckel, the principle of the survival of the fittest could also be observed among individuals and societies. The degeneration of the underclass had to be countered by eugenic measures, and in the international arena, only the strong would survive. This was the natural way of things, and as a result, there was no need to feel pity for the weak. 5 It also implied that national identities were not just the product of rather arbitrary historical developments; they were increasingly seen as having a biological basis — some peoples were superior to others as a consequence of a process of natural selection.
* The institutions of the nation – states showed a clear tendency to become similar, and in many cases almost identical, and the same was true for legal codes, bureaucratic procedures, rules for citizenship, forms of education, and so on.
* Instead of defining nations on the basis of language, which could be changed relatively easily by learning another tongue, many now became interested in more enduring biological factors and the long – term impact of the natural environment. Although this period certainly was characterized by an intensification of nationalist sentiments, the national framework surprisingly was less taken for granted. Some scholars argued that racial categories were more important than national boundaries for understanding human differences. Radical ideas about the unsurmountable differences between races, such as those voiced by Robert Knox and Arthur de Gobineau in the 1850s, became more fashionable toward the end of the century.
* Although the principle of national self – determination sounded logical, the question now was, What nations would be allowed to determine their own fate? In the chaos after the fall of the Russian and Austrian – Hungarian Empires, there were many new states created that did not endure.
* Most authoritarian regimes adopted corporatist ideals, which had been developed by Catholic authors in the late nineteenth century. In the encyclical Rerum Novarum of 1891, Pope Leo XIII officially endorsed a corporatist reordering of society. To avoid both the individualism of liberal capitalism and the class struggle preached by socialists, Catholics should establish corporations — modeled after an idealized image of the medieval guilds — that would bring together workers and employers from each economic branch to defend their common interests while creating harmonious relations at the workplace. These ideas were quickly taken up by other right – wing authors and movements, who also applied them to the political sphere, calling for an organic, corporatist organization of the state.
* Racial ideas influenced many scientists, especially in the field of physical anthropology, where measurements and classifications of corporal traits continued to be in vogue. Many assumed that not just many diseases but also traits such as manual dexterity, intellectual capacity, “wander instincts,” and homosexuality were heritable; biological factors even largely determined the cultural characteristics of entire nations and races.
