The Necessary Nation

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Princeton University Press, 2001 M02 4 - 261 páginas

In this controversial look at nationalism, Gregory Jusdanis offers a sweeping defense of the nation as a protector of cultural difference and a catalyst for modernization. Since the end of the Cold War, the nation-state has undergone intense scrutiny among critics in the media and the academy. Many believe that civic nationalism may be fruitful but that cultural nationalism fosters xenophobia and backward thinking. Jusdanis, however, emphasizes the positive collaboration between nation-building and culture.


Through a series of critical readings of multicultural, postcolonial, and globalization theories, the author reveals how nationalism enables people to defend their distinctive ways of life, to fight colonial oppression, and to build an independent society of citizens. He explains why people over the last two hundred years have politicized their ethnic identities and have sought a union of culture and power within an autonomous nation-state. While seeking to defend nationalism, Jusdanis also examines its potential to unleash extraordinary violence into the world. He thus proposes federalism as a political solution to the challenges posed by nationalism and globalization.


Jusdanis applies the tools of disciplines ranging from anthropology to philosophy, as he explores the nation-building projects of numerous and diverse countries around the world. What emerges is a fresh perspective on the subjects of national culture, identity, political nations, globalization, postcolonialism, and diaspora.

Dentro del libro

Contenido

INTRODUCTION
3
On Nationalism
17
The Union of Nation and State
18
Nations as SelfInstitutions
23
Emotional Attachments
28
Ancient Roots
36
National Integration
39
The Autonomy of Culture
44
Of Backwardness and Change
114
The Greek Culture Wars
118
The Discovery of Tardiness
122
Political Nations
134
England
137
Canada
143
Brazil
148
Egypt
151

Culture as a Totality
46
Culture as Way of Life
49
Absolute States and Religious Wars
52
Culture as Secondary Agent
55
Nationalism as a Reactive Force
58
The Chicken or the Egg?
65
The Bastion of National Culture
71
Fortress Culture
77
National Culture in Aspiration
83
Intellectuals and Class Interest
86
The Perils of Comparisons
89
National Intellectuals
93
Progress and Belatedness
102
Being Late
105
Catching Up
108
Postcolonial Narratives
110
The United States
155
Civic Identity
162
The End of Identities?
166
Of Two Multiculturalisms
169
Racial Panethnicities
177
Culture Culture Everywhere
185
Does Globalization Spell the End?
192
Federal Unions
197
Private Identities Public Assimilation
201
Endless Diaspora
205
Liberal Nationalism
211
Federalism
215
REFERENCES
225
INDEX
259
Derechos de autor

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Acerca del autor (2001)

Gregory Jusdanis is Professor of Modern Greek at Ohio State University. He is the author of The Poetics of Cavafy: Textuality, Eroticism, History (Princeton) and Belated Modernity and Aesthetic Culture: Inventing National Literature.

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