merce, at least so long as they weren't taxed. Liberals pushed the dissolving of “backwards” tradition in the countryside for the benefit of emerging industrialism. Common coin among intellectuals in much of the 19th century was that a nation must be a certain size to compete. The ridiculing of the revolutions in the Balkans reflected this patronizing attitude towards small nations. They felt that economically prosperous states should continue to grow, eventually dividing the world into just a few nations, or perhaps one, with a single government and language. ffatioijal 3elf-determi[jatio[j /I\ouemeijt8 As governments began to push peasants in large regions to choose just one language (when they spoke many), for example in a census, linguistic issues moved to the foreground of national politics. Before this, governments had only used the state language in a region to control and tax those worth bothering. As the entire country began to interest the state and capital more, a few linguistic communities fought against the bureaucracies trying to wipe them out. Many had never even thought of themselves as ethnically distinct before this time. Austria-Hungary was broken into two states as a result of these pressures. National racism and xenophobia began to mark the state rhetoric of this time, taking advantage of the new migrations of people uprooted by capital's expansion. People supported the state if it could convince them that it served their interests, increasingly seen as ethnic and linguistic. Ethnic elites rallied around a national language and sometimes invented tradition. People followed the movement out of desperation. At the same time, states challenged by socialism tried to associate it (with some justice) with immigrants. Uncontrolled xenophobia characterized the First World War, so at the war’s end Woodrow Wilson and colleagues probably thought it natural to divide Europe into what they felt were nations deserving self- determination. But since all states so defined were in reality mixed bags ethnically, purity issues surfaced. In Turkey the immediate result was the massacre and expulsion of Armenians and Greeks. Wilson's dividing of Europe into supposedly pure nations, and another and this fueled blind chauvinism. The political success of British Imperialism rested in part on convincing citizens that triumphs ofthe British lion would lead to richesfor all. Above, social imperialism's message in a frieze at Royal Albert Hall. depression in the capitalist economy that highlighted foreign dependency and competition, eventually led to the rise of Fascism. Recent Good Book/ on Nationali/m Eric Hobsbawm, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of London, is of the opinion that the last twenty years or so have produced studies of Nationalism of better quality than any previous period of twice that length. In fact it is now standard to provide insight into the development of nationalism in any specific monograph on modem history. Here are some of Hobsbawm’s favorites: Hroch, Miroslav. Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe (Cambridge 1985). Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities (Verso, 1983). Armstrong, J. Nations Before Nationalism (Chapel Hill, 1982) Breuilly, J. Nationalism and the State (Manchester, 1982). Cole, John W. and Wolf, Eric R. The Hidden Frontier: tk:ologv and ethnicity in an alpine valley (New York and London, 1974). Fishman. J. (editor) Language Problems of Develoning Countries (New York, 1968). Gellner. Erne.st. Nations and Nationalism (Oxford 1983). Hobsbawm, E. J. and Ranger, Terence (editors) The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983). Smith, A. D. Theories of Nationalism (2nd edition, London 1983). Sztics, Jeno. Nation und Cieschichte: .Stiidien (Budapest, 1981). Tilly, C. (editor) The Formation of National States in Western F.urone (Princeton, 1975). Williams, Gywn A. The Wel.sh in their Hi.storv (London and Canberra, 1982) Especially the essay “When was wales?”. Hobsbawm notes: “...the very fact that historians are at least beginning to make some progress in the study and analysis of nations and nationalism suggests that, as so often, the phenomenon is past its peak.” Nationalism and Colonialism Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread ofNationalism, Benedict Anderson, 160 pp.. Verso, 1983, $13.95. Besides his original title phrase, which is now widely used among historians of nationalism, Anderson’s important book is particularly strong on colonial revolutionary and national movements. He expands on the primary contradiction of Empire that leads to nationalism: the attempt to both “civilize” natives and keep them under foot. Anderson’s reflections are very wide-ranging and coherent. Since he’s a student of Southeast Asia, specializing in Indonesia, he isn’t confined to the European nationalism that, partly because of the resulting two world wars, holds most historical attention. Indonesia is a particularly interesting case study: despite the hundreds of islands and ethnicities, native elites formed a single nation through the center of Dutch colonial administration. He traces also the effect of media on imagined community from the beginnings of printing in Europe to modem revolutionary broadsides in the Third World. Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2 Page 31
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