Nationalism and nationalist ideologies and movements Books

Book SynopsisStates routinely and readily exploit the grey area between sentiments of national affinity and hegemonic emotions geared to nationalist aggression. In this book, Arshin Adib-Moghaddam focuses on the use of Iranian identity to offer a timely exploration into the psychological and political roots of national identity and how these are often utilised by governments from East to West. Examining this trend, both under the Shah as well as by the governments since the 1979 Iranian revolution, Adib-Moghaddam''s analysis is driven by what he terms ''psycho-nationalism'', a new concept derived from psychological dynamics in the making of nations. Through this, he demonstrates how nationalist ideas evolved in global history and their impact on questions of identity, statecraft and culture. Psycho-nationalism describes how a nation is made, sustained and ''sold'' to its citizenry and will interest students and scholars of Iranian culture and politics, world political history, nationalism studies aTrade Review'Sophisticated and innovative, Psycho-nationalism sheds new light on the persistent problem of nationalism. In what Arshin Adib-Moghaddam calls 'psycho-nationalism', the focus is less about, in reference to Ernest Gellner, a political principle with a homogenizing force, and more about disciplinary practices in shaping a cognitive regime of self and other, marked by policies of separation and political antagonism. However, as the case of Iran shows, such disciplinary mechanisms also involve sites of resistance, everyday defiances in redefining the state-society relations in the global era of (un)making nations. This is a book certain to generate discussion and have a major impact in cultural and socio-political studies.' Babak Rahimi, Director of the Program for the Study of Religion and Third World Studies, University of California, San DiegoTable of ContentsIntroduction: love and politics; 1. National hysteria: Roma o'Morte; 2. International hubris: Kings of Kings and Vicegerents of God; 3. Geographic dislocations: Iran is in India; 4. Religious neuroses: Islam and the people; 5. Un-national therapy: freedom and its discontents; 6. Sexing the nation: subversive trans-localities.

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Book SynopsisThis is an ambitious comparative study of regime consolidation in the ''revolutionary'' People''s Republic of China and the ''conservative'' Republic of China (Taiwan) in the years following the communist victory against the nationalists on the Chinese mainland in 1949.Julia C. Strauss argues that accounting for these two variants of the Chinese state solely in terms of their divergent ideology and institutions fails to recognise their similarities and their relative successes.Both, after all, emerged from a common background of Leninist party organization amid civil war and foreign invasion. However, by the mid-1950s they were on clearly different trajectories of state-building and development. Focusing on Sunan and Taiwan, Strauss considers state personnel, the use of terror and land reform to explore the evolution of these revolutionary and conservative regimes between 1949 and 1954. In so doing, she sheds important new light on twentieth-century political change in East Asia, deepeTrade Review'A meticulously researched and elegantly presented study of state consolidation in mainland China and Taiwan. By shrinking the mainland geographic focus to Sunan, where the social roots of the communists were relatively weak, Strauss exploits rich archival data and builds analytical leverage to illuminate commonalities and differences in strategies of the two states as outsiders after 1949.' Melanie Manion, Duke University, North Carolina'Historians have long recognized that for all their mutual hostility and apparent ideological opposition, the two regimes on either side of the Taiwan Strait after 1949 actually had much in common. In this provocative and impressively researched work, Julia C. Strauss treats this parallelism as a kind of natural experiment in state consolidation, which she analyzes to produce more general insight into how new states pursue their agendas.' Michael Szonyi, Harvard University, Massachusetts'Strauss (Univ. of London) has authored a fascinating comparison of two variants of the Chinese party-state in the mid-20th century.' S. C. Hart, Choice'Overall, an excellent book, well worth the attention that it will receive from both historians of modern China and political scientists interested in state formation.' Carl Minzner, Journal of Chinese Political ScienceTable of ContentsIntroduction. Modalities of state building and institution building: bureaucracies, campaigns, and performance; 1. Virtue and talent in making Chinese states: heroes and technocrats in Sunan and Taiwan, 1949–1954; 2. Comparative terror in regime consolidation: Sunan and Taiwan, 1949–1954; 3. Performing terror: lenience, legality, and the dramaturgy of the consolidating state; 4. Repertoires of land reform campaigns in Sunan and Taiwan, 1950–1954; 5. Theatres of land reform: bureaucracy, campaign, and the show, 1950–1954; Conclusion; Appendix: list of interviewees; Documentary collections, reports, and periodicals.

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Book SynopsisMarek Sullivan is a Research Assistant at the University of Oxford, UK. He is also a Managing Editor of the Journal of Secularism and Nonreligion and a former Editor-in-Chief of The Oxonian Review.Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgements Note on translations Introduction 1. Cartesian Secularity: ‘Disengaged Reason’, the Passions and the Public Sphere Beyond Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age (2007) 2. Enlightened Bodies I: Secular Passions, Empiricism and Civic Virtue in the ‘Radical Enlightenment’ 3. Enlightened Bodies II: The Crafting of a Secular-National Subject 4. The Ritual Mask of Oriental Despotism: Wonder and Superimposition in Montesquieu’s Lettres Persanes (1721) and De l’Esprit des Lois (1748) 5. ‘A Morbid Impression’: Race, Religion and Metaphor in Le Fanatisme, ou Mahomet (1741) Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisGianni Vattimo is emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Turin and a member of the European Parliament. He is the author of Hermeneutic Communism (co-authored with S. Zabala), A Farewell to Truth; The Responsibility of the Philosopher; Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith (with R. Girard); Not Being God: A Collaborative Autobiography (with P. Paterlini); Art's Claim to Truth; After the Death of God (with John D. Caputo); Dialogue with Nietzsche; The Future of Religion (with Richard Rorty); Nihilism and Emancipation: Ethics, Politics, and Law; and After Christianity.Michael Marder is Ikerbasque Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz. He is the Associate Editor of Telos: A Quarterly Journal of Critical Thought and the author of The Event of The Thing: Derrida's Post-Deconstructive Realism (2009).Trade ReviewDeconstructing Zionism is by turn spectacular, compelling, difficult and tangential. For a practical-minded reader of politics, the contributions discussed here count amongst the best. * New Zealand International Review *As timely as one can get...Deconstructing Zionism serves as an important reminder that Zionism as such can never be simply deconstructed (indeed, the title of the volume is not Zionism Deconstructed), or its ideology set aside. Its appeal remains strong if not blinding. And as long as injustice for the Palestinians continues, Zionism will be there to justify the status quo, to deflect blame onto the other —whence the need for deconstructing it. -- Zahi Zalloua * Journal of the Society for Contemporary Thought in the Islamicate World *A volume of eleven essays edited and introduced by a prominent Italian philosopher and public intellectual (Vattimo) and a polymathic young academic (Marder), Deconstructing Zionism is admirable for the revealing light through which it re-reads a phenomenon that, as the book’s title aptly suggests, exemplifies the seemingly inextricability of politics from metaphysics — Zionism. -- Andrew M. Wender, JD, PhD, University of Victoria * Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online *[A] welcome addition to the critique of Zionism. -- Rumy Hasan, University of Sussex, UK * E-International Relations *To open, to disassemble, to examine of what the assemblage is made. To think its conditions, its stakes, its possible or vanished meaning anew. That is what 'deconstruction' means. It arises from a real consideration, in the strongest sense, of the chosen object. Today, it is obviously necessary to make Zionism that object, among others—not only the word itself but also all the significations it carries. That is why one must salute the initiative behind this book. -- Jean-Luc Nancy, Professor Emeritus, Strasbourg, FranceThis unique book includes perceptive analyses of Zionism by some of today's leading philosophers. A 'must read' for anyone seeking the theoretical tools to address the conflict in the Middle East and committed to global social justice. -- Simon Critchley, Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy, The New School for Social ResearchFor those of us who believe that the political and moral health of the global world depends on a just and fair solution to the problems that beset Palestine/Israel, this book is an illuminating contribution. These essays written by diverse and gifted hands explore the politics of nationhood and territorial coexistence from a plurality of philosophical, theological, and secular perspectives. The most interesting essays lead us towards the condition of the Middle East via a reflection on other political situations defined by proximity, ambivalence, and antagonism. This is an ambitious and engrossing volume. -- Homi K. Bhabha, Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University, USTable of ContentsIntroduction: “If not now, when?” Gianni Vattimo & Michael Marder Chapter 1: Anti-Semitism and Its Transformations Slavoj Žižek Chapter 2: How to Become an Anti-Zionist Gianni Vattimo Chapter 3: Is Judaism Zionism? Or, Arendt and the Critique of the Nation-State Judith Butler Chapter 4: Decolonizing the Nation-State: Zionism in the Colonial Horizon of Modernity Walter Mignolo Chapter 5: Karl Marx and Hannah Arendt on the Jewish Question: Political Theology as a Critique Artemy Magun Chapter 6: Notes on the Prophetic Instability of Zionism Marc H. Ellis Chapter 7: The Spirit of Zionism: Derrida, Ruah, and the Purloined Birthright Christopher Wise Chapter 8: Rex, or the Negation of Wandering Ranjana Khanna Chapter 9: The Hermeneutical Stance: Being Discharged at the Margins of Political Zionism Santiago Zabala Chapter 10: The Zionist Synecdoche Michael Marder Chapter 11: Sharing Humanity: Towards Peaceful Coexistence in Difference Luce Irigaray Index

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Book SynopsisThe proclamation of a "New World Order," hailed at the end of the cold war, coincided with an eruption of nationalism. The withering of the bipolar balance of power has created a vacuum that has been filled by a new tide of ethnic conflict in the former Soviet Union, the Balkans, Somalia, and elsewhere. Despite general recognition of this resurgent phenomenon, there is neither widespread awareness nor expert consensus on the meaning and origins of nationalism. The Nationalism Reader depicts the historical evolution of nationalist thought in the words of leading political actors and thinkers. But this anthology is more than merely a useful reference book. By classifying the questions of nationalism according to conflicting political perspectives, its introductory essay and organization show that liberalism, conservatism, and socialism oscillate between a universalist (or a semi-universalist) conception of human rights and nationalism. In this respect, the selection of texts presented here sheds new theoretical light on the study of nationalism, as well as presenting major European, American, and Third World contributions to nationalist thought.

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Book SynopsisBased on research in Russian, French, and Belgian archives, Latvia’s Ordeal traces the complex story of Latvian state-building. Pinning hopes on the outcome of World War I, Latvia’s nationalist intelligentsia advocated self-determination and the establishment of a new state within ethnographic borders. Independence emerged in a complex domestic and international landscape. While part of Latvia’s ethnic territories were occupied by German troops, half of the population and much industry had been evacuated to the Russian interior. Proclaiming independence in German-ruled Riga on November 18, 1918, Latvian politicians hoped for Allied support as the German Empire fell apart.Nevertheless, Latvia’s solemn declaration of independence was not enough. As the anxious Allies were awaiting the results of political and military confrontations between the still-deployed German troops, the Bolsheviks ruling in Riga, and military units of the anti-communist White Russian movement, the new Latvian state had to navigate a difficult path between these competing parties and their own people. Ultimately, a peace treaty with Soviet Russia was the only way to guarantee, at least temporarily, Latvia’s independence as a new nation-state.

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Book SynopsisNeglect has become a defining feature of society in the North of Ireland. Manifest in the North''s economy, its politics, housing, and healthcare, the root cause of all this malfunction in the North is clear: British rule. Britain''s argument for retaining its colonial hold over Ireland has always been the idea that the Irish are not fit to govern themselves, and through neglect that guarantees permanent austerity they aim to prove this. However, although the partition of Ireland was designed to guarantee British rule in the North, Republicans are now firmly enfranchised within the Northern state such that this domination has become more difficult and - unable to navigate this fact - their opponents have simply refused to engage in the very institutions designed to administrate the union. But it is only by unifying with the South and destroying the idea of an exclusively Northern society can the people of the North escape this deep-seated decay and create a society that is truly its own.

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Book SynopsisThe contest to maintain and reclaim space is firmly tied to the identity and culture of a displaced population. Palestinian Citizens of Israel is a study of Palestinian communities living inside the Jewish state and their attempts to disrupt and reshape the physical and abstract boundaries that contain them. Through extensive fieldwork and numerous interviews, Sharri Plonski conducts a comparative analysis of resistance movements anchored in three key sites of the Palestinian experience: the defence of housing rights in Jaffa; the protest against settlement in the Galilee region; and the campaign for Bedouin land rights in the Naqab desert. Her research investigates the dialectical relationship between power and resistance as it relates to socio-spatial segregation and the struggle for national recognition. Plonski's examination of Palestinian activism and transgression offers valuable insight into the structures and reaches of power from within the Israeli state. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of both Middle East Studies and Palestinian-Israeli politics.Table of ContentsIntroduction Ambiguities and Antinomies Jaffa The Galilee The Naqab New Borders and Fault Lines Culminations and Conclusions Epilogue – One Last Story

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Book SynopsisMustafa Kemal Atatürk was not widely known when he led the national resistance movement in Anatolia in 1919. However, the effort and attention that his government devoted to the creation of his public image gradually turned him into a superhuman figure in the eyes of many. Film played a crucial role in the creation and dissemination of this image and helped Atatürk to advance his project of building a new “imagined community” of the Turkish nation. But despite the impact of film and film-making on the political and cultural life of Early Republican Turkey, there is almost no research that has analysed this footage. Atatürk on Screen uncovers various film archives to reveal the significant, albeit paradoxical, role of film during this period. Enis Dinç shows that while film-making was crucial for the creation of Atatürk’s public image and the presentation of Turkey’s new modern image to the world, it also posed risks as it could be re-used, re-edited and re-framed for the purposes of counter-propaganda. The main analysis in the book is of the film footage itself, including rare contemporary cinematic sources which have never received comprehensive analysis before. The book also makes use of other primary sources such as letters, memoirs, newspapers, reports, newsletters and production files, providing readers with a multi-layered account of the period.Trade ReviewAtatürk on Screenis the first book worldwide on the evolution of the public image of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey. This well-crafted study also helps us better understand the complex and eclectic early Republican program of state formation, nation-building, and Westernization. -- M. Sükrü Hanioglu, Garrett Professor in Foreign Affairs and Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, U.SThis highly original study, based on unique sources, relates the history of early Turkish cinema to the public self-styling of Atatürk, thus interrogating the foundational myth of modern Turkey. -- Frank van Vree, Professor of History of War, Conflict and Memory, University of Amsterdam, and Director of NIOD Institute, Amsterdam, The NetherlandsTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1: Early Cinema in the Ottoman Empire Chapter 2: Filming the Struggle for Independence (1919-1923) Chapter 3: Performing Modernity: The Film of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on his Forest Farm Chapter 4: How to Impress an American: The Power of the Motion Picture Chapter 5: Father of All Turks: How the March of Time newsreel series represented Atatürk Epilogue Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThis book argues that two conflicting styles of nationalist imagination led to the violent rending of Cyprus in 1974 and sustained that division over decades. Based on research in both southern and northern Cyprus, the work demonstrates how the conflict emerged through the Cypriot's encounters with modernity under British colonialism, and through a consequent re-imagining of the body politic in a new world in which Cypriots were defined as part of a European periphery. Rebecca Bryant demonstrates how Muslims and Christians were transformed into Turks and Greeks, and what it meant epistemologically, ontollogically and politically when they were.Trade Review'A timely and welcome contribution.' - Middle Eastern Studies

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Book SynopsisThe subject of this book hardly needs an introduction. It is doubtful that there is any nation on earth that is not familiar with his colossal and provocative reputation. Adolf Hitler rose from the ranks as an unknown soldier, through the political chaos of the Weimar period, to take command of Germany and embark on a twelve-year odyssey of both great triumphs and great tragedy. Time magazine named him Man of the Year in 1938, but in terms of personal impact on the course of history, he may have been Man of the Century. In the popular imagination, it is impossible to disassociate the man from his emphatic and passionate public addresses. As a result, Hitler''s oratory is often credited with his victory in the competition for political influence in the early years of the NSDAP''s struggle for power. And yet, competent translations of many of his influential speeches have largely been neglected, and those that do exist often do not do justice to the original material.In His Own Words is not only a collection of new and improved translations of some of Hitler''s most important speeches, but also includes original research to provide historical context and information about the speeches themselves. While not a complete collection of every speech he ever made-such a collection would span thousands of pages at minimum-the essential speeches translated in this edition will provide the English reader with an unparalleled understanding of how Hitler used his oratory to become the most recognizable political figure of the modern age.Antelope Hill is proud to present In His Own Words, translated, compiled, and with commentary by C.J. Miller. This work is vital to understanding Adolf Hitler and the twentieth century, and as such it is imperative that it be preserved in the printed word for generations to come.

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Book SynopsisHorst Ludwig Georg Erich Wessel, born in Bielefeld in 1907, was the most celebrated martyr of the National Socialist movement. As a Sturmführer in the brown-shirted Sturmabteilung (SA), Horst Wessel led his men in Berlin, where the Communist paramilitary Red Front Fighters'' League did their best to disrupt the activities of the new German Nationalists. In response to his capable leadership, which threatened the Communist stranglehold on much of the city, the Red Front put out a hit on the young SA-Man. His resulting death at the hands of a cowardly Communist assassin-a pimp and petty criminal named Albrecht Höhler-became a rallying cry for his comrades all across Germany (Höhler would later be executed by the SA following the seizure of power in 1933).The namesake of this book-Die Fahne Hoch, or Raise the Flag-is a song written by Horst Wessel as a fighting song for the SA. After his martyrdom, it was adopted as the official anthem of the NSDAP and later as the national anthem of the Third Reich itself, as the Horst-Wessel-Lied. The three biographies in this collection are not so much dry factual recitations as they are passionate eulogies for a young man who laid down his life for his country, driven by idealism and a fanatical love for his people. Horst Wessel''s stature as an icon of the Third Reich achieved such heights that the legend of his life and death crosses into the territory of founding Mythology for National Socialist Germany.Horst Wessel served as an example to the youth of a defeated and desperate nation, a shining illustration of the value of courage and devotion, and proof that noble deeds often far outlive one''s own life and even the original circumstances in which they were made. Antelope Hill is proud to bring these short biographies together in one collection, Die Fahne Hoch, newly translated for the English reader.Contains:1) Horst Wessel: Life and Death by Erwin Reitmann2) SA Sturmfuhrer Horst Wessel: A Portrait of a Life of Sacrifice by Fritz Daum3) Horst Wessel: Through Strom and Struggle to Immortality by Max Kullak

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Book SynopsisThe Syrian Social Nationalist Party devoted itself to reviving and unifying the Syrian nation and establishing this nation’s complete independence over its historical homeland, Greater Syria. It continues its struggle today, influencing and shaping Lebanese and Syrian society and politics. Yet, the party remains largely unknown and misunderstood, a condition that stems from the lack of any comprehensive study of it. This book fills this gap. Syrian nationalism and nationalist movements, generally speaking, have been largely neglected and ignored by historians, scholars, and observers of the Middle East. So, too, has the SSNP. The lack of detailed and nuanced analyses has left significant gaps in the party’s rich history unaddressed and enabled the perpetuation of inaccuracies and misperceptions regarding its past. Given this and the party’s ongoing relevance in Lebanon and Syria, a thorough examination of the early history of the SSNP, the political organization and movement that embodied Syrian nationalism’s most explicit, most cogent expression is even more necessary. Based on an extensive and thorough examination of Arabic, French, and English primary sources, the monograph is the first comprehensive, systematic history of the SSNP to date, detailing its struggle to fulfill its nationalist vision and establish a secular, independent state in Greater Syria through a thorough analysis of its formation, evolution, and political activities in Lebanon and Syria. Table of ContentsThe book is divided into four parts, each with three chapters. The Introduction provides a general historical overview of the development of Syrian nationalism and the idea of Greater Syria, contextualizing the formation of Saʿadeh’s political thought and the establishment of the SSNP within this discourse. It also addresses the popular discourse on the SSNP in Lebanon and Syria during the period studied and, briefly, the book’s sources, methodology, and structure. Part One, A New Generation (Chapters 1-3), examines Saʿadeh’s first attempts at political organization and activism in the South American mahjar until his return to Lebanon in 1930, the party’s pre-history. It then analyzes the first six years of the SSNP’s existence, from its inception as a clandestine movement in 1932 through its discovery by French authorities in 1935 and its open political activities until Saʿadeh’s exile in 1938. Significantly, it details the party’s growth, shedding light on its recruitment methods, ideological and organizational development, and its geographic expansion in the urban and rural centers of Lebanon and Syria. Part Two, The War Years (Chapters 4-6), details the party’s activity in the mahjar and Syria and Lebanon from the beginning of Saʿadeh’s de facto exile in 1938 until the end of World War II. The first five years of this period were characterized by an intense confrontation with the French that would take a heavy toll on the party. The beleaguered party would find respite in an alliance forged with leading Lebanese politicians in 1943, but it came at a price: shunning the party’s ideological commitment to Greater Syria. The decision of the party leadership to shun Syrian nationalism would bring it into conflict with Saʿadeh and others who viewed it as a deviation that needed to be corrected and put to an end. Part Three, The Road to a Failed Revolution and Its Aftermath (Chapters 7-9), analyzes the tumultuous period in the party’s history that preceded and then intensified Saʿadeh’s return to Lebanon in March 1947. This period was characterized by internal party strife and renewed confrontation with Lebanese authorities as the party under Saʿadeh reasserted its Syrian nationalist creed, which directly challenged the idea of Lebanese independence. The confrontation reached its apogee in the SSNP’s failed “social nationalist revolution” and Saʿadeh’s subsequent execution in the summer of 1949, after which the party was outlawed in Lebanon and forced to move the center of its activities to Damascus and bide its time in Lebanon. Part Four, Advance and Retreat (Chapters 10-12), examines the ways in which the SSNP acted to shape the emerging regional and domestic orders in accordance with its ideological vision in the 1950s. Its good relations with Chamoun and his government in Lebanon and Shishakli and his regime in Syria enabled the party to develop its strength and expand its influence in both countries. However, a lack of broad popular appeal and poor decision making would lead the SSNP into open conflict with its increasingly powerful rivals the Baʿth and the communists, who succeeded in defeating the party and forcing it to retreat from the Syrian public sphere. In Lebanon, the party would fight to preserve Lebanon’s independence against Communist and Arab nationalist designs but would reap little reward for its efforts following the events of 1958. The Epilogue, The Rise of Factionalism, examines the party’s journey to its present, fractured state, demonstrating how the seeds of factionalism planted in the party’s early years bore their bitter fruit over time. It addresses the party’s activities during the Lebanese Civil War and the Syrian Civil War, its alliance with Hezbollah, and the party’s major splits and their sources. Finally, it provides an assessment of why the SSNP has failed to transform into a mass political movement and obtain significant, lasting political power, and will likely never do so.

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