• Agulhon, Maurice. Marianne into Battle: Republican Imagery and Symbolism in France, 1789-1880. Translated by Lloyd, Janet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Summary: This book represents Maurice Agulhon’s attempt to track the changing meanings of “Marianne”-- a figure who came to be synonymous with France, Liberty and the Republican cause after her invention during the French Revolution. Central to the study are images of the Phrygian cap which, more than Marianne herself, represented revolutionary Republicanism. Agulhon argues that each swing towards the right led to the banning of Republican symbolism while each swing to the left quickly meant that the pendulum swung the other way. While Marianne began life as a derogatory Royalist term for Republicans, during the 1850s Marianne began to be equated with the Republic and with France. This volume is the first of two volumes. The second has yet to be translated into English. [E. Zuelow]

• Benner, Erica. (1995). Really Existing Nationalisms: A Post-Communist View from Marx and Engels. Oxford, Clarendon Press.

Summary: That Marx and Engels did not take nationalism seriously is one of the most fixed of all idées fixes in our post-World War, post-Cold War, post-Balkans era. "Workers of the World, Unite!" now seems, at best, a naïvely internationalist slogan. And M & E’s seemingly solid prophecies of the imminent demise of nationalism at the hands of an increasingly alienated proletariat melted into air when the workers rallied to "their" respective flags in 1914. But what evidence—other than the stentorian passages of the Communist Manifesto, and our duo’s fulminations against nationalism as phenomenon and as political program—is there to support the notion that they failed to rigorously theorize it? "Not much," is Erica Benner’s spirited and cogently argued reply.

Benner sets herself the task of proposing "a different reading of what the two men wrote on the subject [of nationalism], and [of identifying] some neglected strands of thought that are less easy to dismiss than the views usually attributed to them" (3). To accomplish these goals, she carefully and sensitively examines Marx and Engels’s political commentaries from the revolutionary years 1848—9 and the years after 1860, with special focus on M & E’s analyses of nationalist movements in their native Germany. In Chapter 1, "Nationality in the Divided State," Benner rejects the base-superstructure model of M & E’s theories, finding instead the conceptual tools with which to mine their thought on nationality in Marx’s critique of Hegel’s political philosophy and in the materialist theory of history and the theory of political action that he formulated with Engels. Chapter 2, "Identities in Conflict," emphasizes the importance of M & E’s historicist anti-naturalism for understanding their critique of political particularisms (like nationalism). In Chapter 3, "Explaining Nationalism," Benner argues that M & E’s analyses of nationalism should be seen as part of a concrete, strategic theory of politics. Chapter 4, "Ethics and Realpolitik in the National Policy, 1847—1849," mines M & E’s early writings to outline an ethical position on nationalism that belies the received wisdom that their policies were simply power-driven. In Chapter 5, "Rescuing Internationalism," Benner turns to the results of M & E’s experience of the years between after 1848, when European colonialism and statist nationalism were on the rise. She finds that M & E, for strategic reasons, took a favorable view of some varieties of anti-colonialist nationalism and proletarian patriotism in this period. Chapter 6, "The Revenge of Nations, 1870—?" evaluates what is living and what is dead in M & E’s thought on nationalism: Benner points out the causal conditions that M & E overlooked, to the detriment of their theories’ predictive power; but she also points to the virtues of M & E’s conception of nationalism as arising from a concrete totality, and argues that we would better comprehend the nationalisms of our own day if we were to seriously theorize them in the context "of other concerns that cut across, oppose, or join forces with nationalism, infusing it with a specific programmatic content" (222). [Tom Donahue]

• Beiner, Ronald, ed. Theorizing Nationalism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999.

Summary: The impetus for this compilation of essays by prominent political philosophers and political theorists was a puzzling fact: nationalism has (until very recently) received only intermittent and glancing attention from political philosophy. As Bernard Yack puts it, "there are no great theoretical texts outlining and defending nationalism. No Marx, no Mill, no Machiavelli. Only minor texts by first rate thinkers, like Fichte, or major texts by second rate thinkers, like Mazzini" (2). This lacuna, as Ronald Beiner acknowledges, is partly attributable to the discipline’s allegiance to a core of central texts; but it may also be due to the ability of particularistic ideologies to shuffle off the generalizing coils of Theory. Whatever the explanation, Beiner & Co. are determined to rectify the situation by raising—and attempting to answer—normative and empirical questions about nationalism.

The fifteen pieces in this volume (not counting Beiner’s introductory overview) cover a remarkably diverse range of topics—too diverse to be enumerated here. Beiner’s division of the essays into five categories may prove useful in this respect. The first category concerns issues of national self-determination, with particular reference to the disputed character of the right to "break" multinational or multiethnic states. The second category covers the question of nationalism and the nature of its ties to modernity; what, several of the essays ask, normative claims follow from the way in which we characterize these ties? The possibility of "liberal nationalism" is the concern of the third category; leaving aside the vexed question of whether such a position can be sustained in practice, can it even be conceptually coherent? The fourth category centers on the famous distinction between "civic" and "ethnic" nationalisms, whether this distinction can be sustained, and if so, what normative status civic nationalism should hold. The last category, as Beiner admits, is marked out by the fact that the essayists only engage with it tangentially: it concerns the existential question, to wit: should anyone be a nationalist in the first place, and if so, why? [Tom Donahue]

• Billig, Michael. Banal Nationalism. London: Sage Publications, 1995.

  Summary: Scholars often assume that people forget their nationalism when they are not directly involved in a crisis situation. While these scholars have focused on extreme expressions of nationalism, Billig suggests that nationalism exists at all times in less visible forms which he defines as "banal nationalism." Far from an ideology of the peripheries, nationalism is always present--even in the "developed" West.

  Billig suggests that people do not forget their nationalism. Instead, nationalism is routinely "flagged" in the media through symbols like flags and language involving phrases like "national interest". He argues that it is very important to recognize these symbols if we are to understand the continuing importance of nationalism in the post-Cold War world. Ultimately, Billig demonstrates the central role that nationalism plays in the modern world--even if not always recognized as nationalism. [E. Zuelow]

• Borntraeger, Ekkehard W. Borders, Ethnicity and National Self-Determination. Vienna: Baumueller, 1999.

Summary: The present essay first seeks to put some widely held conventional assumptions on the nature of borders to the test of empirical reality. Underlining the dynamic character of boundaries, the author subsequently seeks to assess the role of ethnicity in the spatial development of modern states; nation-building and national-cultural differentiation in the extra-European context are given particular attention. The tendencies hereby brought to light will be related to the postulate of self-determination.. A discussion of both the major theoretical and practical aspects of national self-determination completes the study. [E.W. Borntraeger]

• Boyce, D. George. Nationalism in Ireland. Third Edition ed. London and New York: Routledge, 1995.

Summary: This book provides an overview of Irish history from the initial English colonization during the late middle ages right up to the twentieth century. It is distinguished from other textbook overviews by its focus on "nationalism." An introductory chapter provides a brief discussion of theories of nationalism, however the remainder of the text largely assumes that readers enjoy a common understanding of what nationalism is, even as the author has not really established his position. Given the fierce debate surrounding the question: "When is the nation?", this is a dubious approach. Those with little background in Irish History (most undergraduates, for example) may find the book frustrating because the narrative does not consistently follow a clear chronological path, still it remains one of the better Irish history surveys. [E. Zuelow]

Brehony, K. J. and N. Rassool, ed. Nationalisms Old and New. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999.

Breuilly, John. Nationalism and the State. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

• Brubaker, Rogers. Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Summary: This important collection of essays is tied together by the idea that nationalist politics have been recast in post-Communist Europe and Eurasia to meet new needs. The book is divided into two sections. In the first, Brubaker lays out his argument that nations are variable and should not be viewed as real groups. Instead "nations" are "categories of practice." As a result, we must seek to understand the "practical uses of the category "nation." In the second half of his book, Brubaker applies his theory to various case studies in the "New Europe." Ultimately, this work offers one of the best "postmodern" accounts of nations and nationalism and is essential reading for both those wishing to gain a broad understanding of theories of nationalism and those interested in understanding the direction nationalist discourse has taken since 1989. [E. Zuelow]

• Bruce, Steve. The Edge of Union: The Ulster Loyalist Political Vision. Oxford, New York and Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Summary: Although there is a large literature about (Catholic) nationalism in Northern Ireland, comparatively little has been written about Ulster Unionists. Steve Bruce is one of the few who has turned his attention toward understanding the largest ethnic group in Ulster. The Edge of Union provides a disturbing look at the Northern Irish conflict. Based largely on interviews conducted by the author between 1991 and 1993, Bruce attempts to assess loyalist thinking about the Unionist position and to offer a corrective to previous scholarly treatment of the conflict. Bruce complains that earlier scholars, like many Irish nationalists, have underestimated the depth of unionist feeling and, either because of a latent political agenda or a desire to avoid "shocking" readers, ultimately fail to explain the situation. Bruce argues that the conflict must be understood in ethnic terms and through a realization of the power of expressive action. The importance of religion as a core component of Ulster protestant identity must not be ignored. [E. Zuelow]

Burns, Jimmy. Barça: A People’s Passion. London: Bloomsbury, 1999.