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 Nationalism
by Ernest Gellner
In
this book, completed just before his death, Ernest Gellner
explores the phenomenon of nationalism, tracing its emergence
and roots in the modern industrialized nation-state, its links
with romanticism and its creation of national myths. He
investigates its various manifestations and reveals how in long
established states, such as France, it has been relatively
benign, while in Eastern Europe in particular - where
nationalist feeling preceded the emergence of modern states -
its influence has been far more problematic, and at times
disastrous. Finally, the book explores the prospects for
minimizing the influence of nationalist feeling and cautiously
anticipates the possibility of its decline in this decade of
continuing atrocities and "ethnic cleansing"...
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Created and Maintained by
Philippe Couton. Website devoted to the wide-ranging work of Ernest
Gellner, philosopher,
anthropologist, sociologist.
Excerpt:
Our primary intention is to provide a resource page for individuals
interested in the thoughts, ideas and works of the late Ernest Gellner. It is widely understood that Gellner actively participated in a
variety of discussions; from the nature of modernity, the causes of
nationalism, the role of philosophy in modern life, the rise of Islam,
to the nature of industrialism and rationalism. Gellner wrote extensively on all these topics throughout his academic life. We
hope to foster and disseminate commentary and discussion on Gellner's thought with this Page. Please feel free to contribute
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By Paul Stirling, Prof. Emeritus,
University of Kent at Canterbury
appeared in the Daily Telegraph, November 9th, 1995.
Excerpt:
On Sunday morning (5th Nov), the world lost one of its most
vigorous intellectuals, at Prague airport, on his way back from chairing
with his usual brilliance yet another conference. Ernest Gellner (b. 9
December, 1925) was much more than a successful don (philosopher and
anthropologist); a professional thinker who enjoyed thinking enormously
('the second greatest pleasure in life'), despised writers who write about
thoughts and not about the world as it is, and dared to emulate the greats
of the Enlightenment, especially Hume, and 'The Greatest Thinker of Them
All', Kant. He was a polemical rationalist. Only on Saturday the Guardian
published, characteristically as part of a hostile review of a
philosopher, complete with foxes and hedgehogs his anguished anxieties
about the future of our liberal, affluent, technological, still optimistic
society; eight concrete dangers, in another devastating attack on
relativism - the idea of a pluralism of incommensurate values. He once
said he was on the fence, under fire from both sides; rather he spent his
whole life exposed on top of a rationalist bunker, exchanging rapid and
fierce fire in all directions. A radical of the centre; with many friends
and many enemies.
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