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The Nature of Nationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Hans Kohn
Hans Kohn
Affiliation:
Smith College
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Extract

Nationalism as we understand it is not older than the second half of the eighteenth century. Its first great manifestation was the French Revolution, which gave the new movement an increased dynamic force. Nationalism had, however, become manifest at the end of the eighteenth century almost simultaneously in a number of widely separated European countries. Its time in the evolution of mankind had arrived, and although the French Revolution was one of the most powerful factors in its intensification and spread, it was not its date of birth. Like all historical movements, nationalism has its roots deep in the past. The conditions which made its emergence possible had matured during centuries before they converged at its formation. These political, economic, and intellectual developments took a long time for their growth and proceeded in the various European countries at different pace. It is impossible to grade them according to their importance or to make one dependent upon the other. All are closely interconnected, each reacting upon the other; and although their growth can be traced separately, their effects and consequences cannot be separated otherwise than in the analysis of the scholar; in life, they are indissolubly intertwined.

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Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 33 , Issue 6 , December 1939 , pp. 1001 - 1021
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1939

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References

1 Aristotle understood by “state,” or “fatherland,” something that could easily be felt as a reality in everyday concrete contacts. He therefore believed that a state should consist of not less than ten, and of not more than ten thousand, inhabitants. (Ethics, IX, 10, 3. The great barbarian empires were for him no real states. Politics, VII, 4.)

2 Michels, Robert has remarked that the Fernstenliebe extends from patriotism to internationalism. “Denn Patriotismus und Internationalismus haben das Merkmal physischer Kontaktlosigkeit der sie Empfinden denzu den Mitempfindenden gemeinsam.” Der Patriotismus; Prolegomena zu seiner soziologischen Analyse (Munich, 1929), p. 88.Google Scholar Patriotism and internationalism are, or can be, the product of an historical development and of indoctrination by education.

3 Pillsbury, W. B., The Psychology of Nationality and Internationalism (New York, 1919), p. 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The last chapter of this book is especially worthy of attention.

4 Zangwill, Israel, The Principle of Nationalities (London, 1917), p. 39.Google ScholarWeber, Max defines nationality as “a common bond of sentiment whose adequate expression would be a state of its own, and which therefore normally tends to give birth to such a state.” Verhandlungen des Zweiten Deutschen Soziologentages (Tübingen, 1913), p. 50.Google Scholar

5 “The spirit of nationality may be defined (negatively but not inaccurately) as a spirit which makes people feel and act and think about a part of any given society as though it were the whole of that society.” Toynbee, Arnold J., A Study of History (London, 1934), Vol. 1, p. 9.Google Scholar

6 Herbert, Sidney, Nationality and Its Problems (London, 1920), p. 161.Google Scholar

7 Park, Robert E. and Burgess, Ernest W., Introduction to the Science of Sociology (Chicago, 1924), p. 931.Google Scholar

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