- How is a nation different from other social groups, geographical units and political communities?
This is a difficult question — not only for me personally but clearly for scholars as well. To determine the distinctions between and among different groupings when the overlaps can be substantial is a daunting task. In some ways, defining a nation in part is based on the “Imaginary” nature of nationhood as Benedict Anderson would have us believe. For instance, in the case of social groups, there are usually (although not always) concrete markers that can be assessed to determine one’s standing within such groups; class, e.g., is primarily economic and so measurable. Geographic units and political communities are concretely defined. Nations, however, are much “fuzzier” in terms of what constitutes them. Hastings, for instance, insists that ethnicities only become nations once it “possesses or claims the right to political identity and autonomy as a people” and can be “identified by a literature of its own.”[1] He notes that the Biblical Israelites provide a paradigmatic example, but given that Jews for most of their history in diaspora did not claim any political identity or autonomy. Does that mean that they were therefore not a nation? They certainly had a national literature, but Hastings seems to suggest that this criterion is necessary but not sufficient.
- What are the fundamental disagreements over when and why nations have come into being?
The disagreements are based in part on the terminology, as noted in the previous question. That said, another important factor is chronology. Whereas Hastings insists that nationhood goes back at least as far as the emergence of England as a coherent political entity, others (notably the “holy trinity” of Hobsbawm, Anderson, and Gellner) decided see it as something that coincides with the advent of liberalism and specifically the French Revolution. Within this controversy, I’m inclined to sight with Hobsbawm et al, particularly since I see the rise of nationalism — particularly ethnic nationalism — as a political force in Europe to be a direct reaction to liberalism and its inability to deliver on the principles that it claimed to embody.
- How do you think historians can most usefully study nations?
I think historians can most usefully study nations with detachment. Because there is so much subjectivity loaded into the idea of what constitutes a nation and because there is the necessary aspect (in my opinion) of their being imaginary, in some regards, only an outsider of a particular nation can study that nation dispassionately. In this regard, I sort of agree with the point of Hobsbawm’s about Zionists pursuing Jewish history that Hastings quotes — presumably in disagreement. The obverse of that coin, however, is that, for many smaller nations, there are few non-members of the nations who are sufficiently interested in them to undertake in-depth study. Therefore, if a member of a nation seeks to study his/her nation as an historian, it might best be pursued by conceding at the outset that the whole concept is contingent and subject to debate. An historian who is not able to concede that point is, I think, doomed to draw inherently subjective conclusions.
- What roles have historians played in the formation of modern nations? How have these roles changed since the nineteenth century?
In the past, I think historians have often played a key role in the construction of nationalist mythologies, particularly since (not to put the cart before the horse) I don’t think a nation can exist without history — given that history is a commonly understood criterion for nationhood. The role has changed, by and large, with historians taking a more critical approach to nationalism, not just of individual nations but of the concept of nationhood overall. In the same way that race is now commonly understood within the social sciences to be social construct, whereas it was seen as overwhelmingly “scientific” in the first half of the last century, nations were accepted as concrete realities by historians in the past, whereas now historians are more likely to submit the concept to skeptical analysis and conclude that, while there might be certain physical realities than underpin nationhood, it is more a construction like race.
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[1] Adrian Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge, UK, 1997), 3.
Inevitable Historicity 