Nationhood And Nationalism In France

Leading international historians examine the impact of nationhood and nationalism on French life. World-renowned contributors (many publishing for the first time in English), include Eugene Weber, Zeev Sternill, Pierre Sorlin and Jean-Claude Allain.

The political scene in France was dramatically changed in the late 1880s by a radical brand of nationalism. This had a major influence on twentieth-century fascist and conservative movements. In this important and up-to-date volume, leading international historians examine the impact of nationhood and nationalism on French life. Features: World-renowned contributors (many publishing for the first time in English), including Eugene Weber, Zeev Sternhell, Pierre Sorlin and Jean-Claude Allain. A comprehensive coverage of all the key issues surrounding radical nationalism in the areas of ideas, politics and policy. Many new and controversial ideas - including original papers on women and sport - that are developing in the field.

This concise history of the post-revolutionary period in France provides at the same time an original study of the evolution of French nationalism since 1789. Brian Jenkins argues that French nationalism can be understood only in the context of class antagonism, and that the nationalisms of left and right have profoundly different social and ideological foundations. nation state, Jenkins investigates the concepts of nation and class, showing how they are often transformed by the changing social and political context of two centuries of history. He analyzes the significant historical events since the French Revolution from the perspective of the growth of the concept of nationhood and national identity. His analysis raises issues of contemporary relevance, such as the debate on the legacy of the French Revolution, the renewed interest in the diversity and viability of the modern nation state and nationalist ideology and the controversy about the future of radical left-wing politics.

The difference between French and German definitions of citizenship is instructive--and, for millions of immigrants from North Africa, Turkey, and Eastern Europe, decisive. Rogers Brubaker shows how this difference--between the territorial basis of the French citizenry and the German emphasis on blood descent--was shaped and sustained by sharply differing understandings of nationhood, rooted in distinctive French and German paths to nation-statehood.

National Identities in France explores nationalism, national identities, and the various ways in which these concepts are accepted, adapted, discarded, or internally disputed across ideological divides. The popular assumption that automatically regards nationalism as a largely right-wing concern, occludes the many ways in which nationalism and national identities have contributed to social imagination and political or literary discourses across the right-left spectrum. The critical grounds on which such reflections are undertaken are rich and varied. The idea of invented traditions has long suggested how such a thing as the modernnation-state could vest itself in the creatively assembled robes of a dim and distant past. In plotting the ground on which nationalisms are located, previous studies have shown, among other things, the uses and limitations of the distinction of ethnic and civic nationalism. Studies on national development reveal the imitative process that brought about nation building in former colonies of the Western powers. Each chapter asks important questions concerning nationalism and national identities in relation to France. With nationalism, apparently stable distinctions collapse under the pressure of French national identity. The signs are that French national identities and nationalisms are in a constant state of reinvention and negotiation, of periodic crisis and constant rebirth. If political classes attempt to manipulate national identity for some larger project, they have no monopoly on the social imaginary. National mobilization is a multiple and polysemic process, not a univocal and rigid ideology.

Casts new light on of the 'official' French nineteenth-century narrative by examining how historians and philosophers conceived of the country's past.

The Paradoxes of Nationalism explores a critical stage in the development of the principle of national self-determination: the years of the French Revolution, during which the idea of the nation was fused with that of self-government. While scholars and historians routinely cite the French Revolution as the origin of nationalism, they often fail to examine the implications of this connection. Chimène I. Keitner corrects this omission by drawing on history and political theory to deepen our understanding of the historical and normative underpinnings of national self-determination as a basis for international political order. Based on this analysis, Keitner constructs a framework for evaluating nation-based claims in contemporary world politics and identifies persistent theoretical and practical tensions that must be taken into account in contemplating proposals for "civic nationalism" and alternative, nonnational models.

Nationalism was ubiquitous in nineteenth-century Europe. Yet, we know little about what the nation meant to ordinary people. In this book, both renowned historians and younger scholars try to answer this question. This book will appeal to specialists in the field but also offers helpful reading for any college and university course on nationalism.