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Nationalism and the State
Penny politics offers a new way to read early Victorian popular fiction such as Jack Sheppard, Sweeney Todd, and The Mysteries of London. It locates forms of radical discourse in the popular literature that emerged simultaneously with Brittan’s longest and most significant people’s movement. It listens for echoes of Chartist fiction in popular fiction. The book rethinks the relationship between the popular and political, understanding that radical politics had popular appeal and that the lines separating a genuine radicalism from commercial success are complicated and never absolute. With archival work into Newgate calendars and Chartist periodicals, as well as media history and culture, it brings together histories of the popular and political so as to rewrite the radical canon.
492 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 14, 2021
My recollection is that when I read this book thirty years ago in grad school, I was not particularly impressed. Returning to it I was even more frustrated than I remember.
Breuilly has a comprehensive grasp of literature on nationalism up to the early 1980s, and the title sounds like exactly the kind of ground breaking book one would expect from the person whom I believe was Anthony D. Smith's first student, and so following in a succession from Ernest Gellner. Unfortunately, this book suffers from the attempt to do a massive comparative study without having done a serious case study based on archival research. This is most unfortunate for his study, because while the theoretical understanding of nationalism was growing in leaps and bounds as the first edition was published, this had as yet had little affect on empirical studies driven by archival research. Indeed, while Breuilly cites Gellner's _Thought and Change_, Gellner's more extensive reflection _Nations and Nationalism_ appeared a year after this book, and Benedict Anderson's _Imagined Communities_ likewise is not mentioned for the same reason. So Breuilly's discussions of the various cases he uses are simply a regurgitation of the respective conventional national historical narratives. So he accepts the assumption that elite Poles were broadly active supporters of the restoration of a Polish state, and while he sees some differences the way Polish nationalism became an active concern, Breuilly never stops to think if the nationalist historiography is misleading him. The same holds true for the Hungarians, Czechs, Romanians and Serbs in the Habsburg Monarchy, while remarkably he excuses himself from exploring German nationalist sentiment in Austria, a case that would probably offer more insight into the connection between the state and nationalism and the interplay with the other nationalism had he chosen to explore that topic. My knowledge of Arab nationalism, and anti-colonial nationalism is not so well developed but the I saw no evidence that these case studies were more critical of the existing narratives and therefore more insightful. Indeed, the fact that he has predetermined the categories before presenting his case studies is really a warning sign. Of course, the ambitious nature of the project likely led to that, but it says something about the state of nationalism studies at the time, that the theoretical leaders, were not positioned to see the flaw of allowing Breuilly to write such a book without having done some significant empirical research before tackling such a huge topic, maybe too large to bring truly valuable insights. After all if late 18th C. efforts to revive the Czech language, the Indian Independence movement and Nazi radical nationalism are all part of one large continuum rather than qualitatively different political movements that all made the nation the focus, then maybe the problem is the thesis that nationalism is a form of politics might use some refining. That said, given the much more nuanced discussion of nationalism and national movements that have developed in the meantime, it might be time for someone else to revisit this topic for there can be no doubt that the state is important player in defining nationalism and nations and why they are important.
Breuilly has a comprehensive grasp of literature on nationalism up to the early 1980s, and the title sounds like exactly the kind of ground breaking book one would expect from the person whom I believe was Anthony D. Smith's first student, and so following in a succession from Ernest Gellner. Unfortunately, this book suffers from the attempt to do a massive comparative study without having done a serious case study based on archival research. This is most unfortunate for his study, because while the theoretical understanding of nationalism was growing in leaps and bounds as the first edition was published, this had as yet had little affect on empirical studies driven by archival research. Indeed, while Breuilly cites Gellner's _Thought and Change_, Gellner's more extensive reflection _Nations and Nationalism_ appeared a year after this book, and Benedict Anderson's _Imagined Communities_ likewise is not mentioned for the same reason. So Breuilly's discussions of the various cases he uses are simply a regurgitation of the respective conventional national historical narratives. So he accepts the assumption that elite Poles were broadly active supporters of the restoration of a Polish state, and while he sees some differences the way Polish nationalism became an active concern, Breuilly never stops to think if the nationalist historiography is misleading him. The same holds true for the Hungarians, Czechs, Romanians and Serbs in the Habsburg Monarchy, while remarkably he excuses himself from exploring German nationalist sentiment in Austria, a case that would probably offer more insight into the connection between the state and nationalism and the interplay with the other nationalism had he chosen to explore that topic. My knowledge of Arab nationalism, and anti-colonial nationalism is not so well developed but the I saw no evidence that these case studies were more critical of the existing narratives and therefore more insightful. Indeed, the fact that he has predetermined the categories before presenting his case studies is really a warning sign. Of course, the ambitious nature of the project likely led to that, but it says something about the state of nationalism studies at the time, that the theoretical leaders, were not positioned to see the flaw of allowing Breuilly to write such a book without having done some significant empirical research before tackling such a huge topic, maybe too large to bring truly valuable insights. After all if late 18th C. efforts to revive the Czech language, the Indian Independence movement and Nazi radical nationalism are all part of one large continuum rather than qualitatively different political movements that all made the nation the focus, then maybe the problem is the thesis that nationalism is a form of politics might use some refining. That said, given the much more nuanced discussion of nationalism and national movements that have developed in the meantime, it might be time for someone else to revisit this topic for there can be no doubt that the state is important player in defining nationalism and nations and why they are important.
June 23, 2019
This book has an insightful argument about the fundamental connection between the success of nationalism and the rise of the modern state. Also, Breuilly covers a lot of literature about nationalism published until the 1990s. However, this work tremendously suffers from a poor application of its thesis to different case-studies all around the globe. Also, he suspiciously misses the discussion on Latin America. Overall, the book would have benefited from a more rigorous application of its main ideas.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews