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- [00:01]
Podcast Host
Are you ready for this?
- [00:02]
Advertiser/Promoter
Eenie Meenie a Hulu original. Now streaming. Eenie Meenie There's a casino job in.
- [00:08]
Dr. John Hutchinson
Just a few days. $3 million. You get right to it.
- [00:12]
Advertiser/Promoter
From the guys who wrote Deadpool.
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Dr. John Hutchinson
Your boy's a liability. X Is he, though?
- [00:19]
Advertiser/Promoter
Let's get this money.
- [00:20]
Dr. John Hutchinson
Can we think this through for a second? Yeah.
- [00:23]
Podcast Host
Cause that's your strong suit. Thinking things through.
- [00:25]
Advertiser/Promoter
Eenie Meenie A Hulu original. Rated R. Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney. This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Between two factor authentication, strong passwords, and a VPN, you try to be in control of how your info is protected. But many other places also have it, and they might not be as careful. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, guaranteed. Or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelocked.com podcast for 40% off. Terms apply.
- [01:04]
Podcast Host
Welcome to the History Extra podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine. Humans tend to identify with being in a group, and historically, few groupings have been more potent than the idea of the nation. But when did people first turn to the idea of nationalism? Is it predominantly a right wing creed, and does it thrive during periods of crisis and uncertainty? Well, in this Everything youg Wanted To Know episode, Danny Bird puts these questions and others submitted by our listeners to the academic and author, Dr. John Hutchinson.
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Interviewer/Danny Bird
John, let's start with the word nationalism. From a historian's point of view, what exactly is nationalism? How should we define it?
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Dr. John Hutchinson
That is one of the most complicated questions in the social sciences. But by and large, nationalism is seen as an ideology, perhaps the most powerful ideology in the modern world, an ideology that states that the world is divided into nations and that members of the nation seek three things in particular. One, the political freedom of the nation, the sanctity of a territorial homeland, in other words, the defense of a territorial homeland, and thirdly, the cultural distinctiveness or uniqueness of the nation. Other people have said well beyond the ideology of nationalism, there's national sentiment. The ideology of nationalism is generally viewed as emerging really roughly in the 18th century. But the sentiment, by and large, can be seen to be older, can trace it back to medieval times.
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Interviewer/Danny Bird
And just to clarify, how does nationalism differ from something like patriotism? Is it simply political, or is there a deeper emotional or ideological distinction?
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Dr. John Hutchinson
Well, again, that's a point of contention. 1 Scholars argue that patriotism basically is a loyalty to the state, whereas nationalism is to a national community. But others have said it's very difficult in practice to distinguish between the two. In the late 18th century, there was something called the patriot movement, and that was much more limited to the defense of your territory. Whereas others have said, well, nationalism is a much more expansive ideology that justifies aggression against other nations or against other peoples. But I think, by and large, it's very difficult because a defensive nationalism can easily turn into a more expansive nationalism.
- [03:45]
Interviewer/Danny Bird
We've had a lot of questions relating to the origins of nationalism as a concept. Max H. F Quigley on X would like to know, when did the idea of a nation first arise? And Nick Williamson from Facebook wants to know how far back can nationalism be identified? For example, he asks if people living in Scotland during the 14th century felt a sense of Scottishness.
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Dr. John Hutchinson
Those are very good questions. As regards the first question, the Bible divides, as it were, peoples of the world into nations. So you can't trace it back to biblical roots. And some medieval scholars have argued that in England and France, in particular and Spain, you get the notion of a nation emerging, and by that means the idea that there are people with different biological and perhaps biblical origins who have distinctive cultures, and also that these people should be free. So there's a kind of notion of the nation well before the modern period. But many scholars have argued well, that notion of the nation is very different from the modern one, which focuses very much on citizenship as the attribute of the nation. Now, the declaration of our growth in the 14th century is often cited as an example of an expression of nationalism. This was a plea to the Pope, who seemed to be favoring the English side and had excommunicated the Scottish king, that the noblemen of Scotland asserted the rights of the Scots as an ancient people who had fought all kinds of invaders, and that they should be free and certainly not governed by a foreigner. So, yes, in medieval Scotland, there is an expression of a kind of nationalism.
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Interviewer/Danny Bird
You've written extensively about the split between cultural and political nationalism. Could you give us a sense of how those two strands emerged and maybe how they played out differently in different places around the world?
- [05:55]
Dr. John Hutchinson
Yes, there are two strands, at least two strands in nationalism. In fact, there are many varieties, but one focuses very much on the state and the achievement of citizenship rights in the state. That, for example, in Ireland in the 19th century, Catholics were excluded from the vote. So there was a very powerful nationalist movement inaugurated by Daniel o', Connell, demanding equality for Catholics. But that's very much focused on equal participation in the State, whereas there's also a notion of nation. The nation is more than a state. It's a moral community with its own distinctive customs, as even a kind of distinctive civilization. So all nations have their own peculiar cultural characteristics, and without these characteristics, having a state is of very little importance. So there's often a tension between the cultural nationalists and the political nationalists, because the political nationalists say, okay, this focus on language and history is all very well, but we're living in the modern world. We want to have the dignity of citizens being part of a kind of modern economy and a modern state. So there is this tension between the two. But it's a kind of distinction you see between, for example, in India, Nehru, who favors independent India, very much influenced by socialist ideologies, and part of a kind of new developing world, versus Gandhi, who look back to medieval India and the crafts and so forth. And so they had very different visions of India.
- [07:41]
Interviewer/Danny Bird
Do you think nationalism is a phenomenon defined and imposed from above by political or cultural elites, or is it something that comes from below, from the people, as it were?
- [07:51]
Dr. John Hutchinson
Well, I think it very much depends. Some scholars have seen nationalism as a kind of invention of tradition. They're inventing nations which didn't exist, and they're using that as a device to secure political power for a kind of intelligentsia against the nobility or against the crown. And so in this, it's almost a conspiratorial idea that they create the idea of the nation to mobilize the masses against tradition. But of course, in many cases there is a nationalism emerging from below, often against the established views of the community. So, for example, in smaller countries, Ireland for one, or the Catalans or the Basques, they very much see their movement against the established political elites. And to some extent they're creating a counter elite leaders who will create, as it were, the Catalan nation against the Spanish nation. But in practice, I think there are both forces trying to achieve things from above and those from below. For example, after Italian independence, there's a famous saying that we have achieved Italy, now we have to make Italians. And what that politician was referring to was, yes, we've achieved a state, but only a small part of the population is really nationalist. Very few speak the Tuscan language, which used to be the standard language of Italy. So we actually have to create a nation which barely exists. But in other cases there are, as it were, there's a nationalism from below whereby the state is just the completion, seen as the completion of a larger project.
- [09:48]
Interviewer/Danny Bird
How significant is mythology to nationalism? And are there Some examples that you think were crucial in shaping national identities.
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Dr. John Hutchinson
One scholar defined the nation as a people united by a common mistake about their history. And what they mean by that is the history that nationalists put forward is in large part mythical. I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. But nevertheless, many nationalist movements promote the idea that there was once a golden age, which the nation has to get back to, that in the present, there's corruption, the elites have lost their way, foreign ideas have taken over and so forth. And they find in the past, sometimes with more or less accuracy, a golden age in which the nation was united. And it's usually an age often of military might, but certainly of cultural achievement. And so they argue, let's go back to that golden age. It gives us a sense of pride in the present and it gives us a model by which we can reconstruct the nation. But there's often a lot of conflict about what that golden age is and the values that are asserted. Again using examples, the emergence of Indian nationalism came about with the discovery of a so called age of Aryans in which Aryan civilization in India, they were the inventors of mathematics, they were a civilization of scientific progress, there was relative equality. So Indians who were rejecting the traditionalism of Hinduism with its emphasis on castes and its rejection of modernity, argued, well, our real past is the Aryan past, and this Hindu past of the Brahmins is just a corruption of it. We have to modernize India and it's actually going back to the authentic India. So the golden age is often an instrument of modernizing groups in the society, attacking the traditionalists.
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Interviewer/Danny Bird
It seems that in many historical contexts, and you've kind of touched upon this already, whether it's Poland, India or Spain under Francois, is that religion often plays a key role in national identity. Is that incidental or is there something more intrinsic between the sacred and the national?
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Dr. John Hutchinson
Yes, I mean, some have argued for the biblical origins of nationalism. Even in the Middle Ages, peoples and kingdoms were trying to claim descent from biblical heroes. And they found that Israel was the ideal community. Ancient Israel was the ideal, the godly community. And it was characteristic, characterized by the kingdom which united its people. It had a sacred territory, it had various customs, often religiously based, and it mobilized to defend itself in war. And particularly Protestants, by emphasizing literacy and reading the Bible, actually popularized this ideal of the holy community, which effectively was a national community. But of course, this is also true of many Catholic countries, as you mentioned Poland. So in a religious country, people would often describe the sufferings of the People as like the sufferings of Christ. So in Poland, there's the idea of Poland as the crucified nation because it was torn apart by different empires. And this religious notion is very important because of course, in Christianity, at the end of history, the meek will inherit the earth.
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Interviewer/Danny Bird
Shifting gears a little, how did Karl Marx and other socialist thinkers view nationalism? Because there's often this assumption that that nationalism and socialism are opposites. But history seems to tell a more complicated story.
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Dr. John Hutchinson
Yes, well, if you look at the Communist Manifesto as workers of the world unite, you've nothing to lose but your chins. So many Marxists did see nationalism as a kind of rival ideology. But Marxists did make an exception for colonial peoples because they argued also that capitalism was doomed to collapse. And what was keeping it from collapse is the capture of imperial territories were brought new markets for capitalism. So the cause of colonial peoples was also the cause of socialism. So they supported anti colonial nationalisms in the hope that bringing down empires would lead to the socialist revolution. At the same time, at the point of the First World War, Marxists did believe that this conflict of empires and nations was a great opportunity for the workers to seize control. In practice, the workers fell in line with their empires and their nation states. Lenin came to believe that Bolshevik had to work with national sentiments. He argued that establishing a communist state in the Russian empire would be in danger because on the one hand, there were the powerful Russians who had tried to assert one version. And this would immediately create antagonism on the smaller nationalities who had in recent decades rejected the Tsaristate. So he argued that the Soviet Union needed to be based on republics based on the most powerful nationalities. And that you could promote the nationalities in the Soviet Union making a bargain with the national elites that they would, while promoting the national cultures, they would also promote the communist goals of industrialization and agrarian collectivism. So it was seen that somehow nationalism had been tamed and of course the tensions became insuperable for the Soviet Union.
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Interviewer/Danny Bird
This leads me to another common perception, which is that nationalism is inherently a right wing phenomenon. Is that fair or do we miss something if we reduce it to just the political right?
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Dr. John Hutchinson
Well, nationalism traditionally has gone right across the board. One has liberal nationalism. And you could argue that British nationalism in the 19th century was promoting free trade, individualism and the rule of law. And they saw the advancement of freedom going hand in hand with the advance of British interests. Indeed, you have socialist nationalism emerging, as I mentioned, as well as conservative nationalism. So nationalism is a promiscuous ideology, I think all the major political ideologies seem to converge on nationalism. At one point, they seem to need the support of a powerful political community. Without that political base, they cannot develop their institutional schemes.
- [16:59]
Interviewer/Danny Bird
Of course, one of the most fraught aspects of nationalism is how it draws lines between us and them. Or to put it another way, the dynamic between those in the in group and those in the out group. Historically, how has nationalism affected minority groups within empires, but also within nation states? Is nationalist logic always predicated on exclusion?
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Dr. John Hutchinson
Well, one definition of a society is it is a bounded unit. So any human group has mechanisms by which to preserve its continuity in time. And often that means excluding aliens. And that goes well beyond nationalism. Nationalism has often emerged as a reaction to foreign rule. And one of the slogans of nationalism, we've got the masters in our own house. So there is a dimension of exclusion there. And as were the greater, as it were, the threat from outside, whether it's military or kind of mass migration, or it's a kind of group of the foreign ideology seeming to threaten the interests of the nation. So a more exclusionary dimension of nationalism emerges. For example, in the First World War, the British would not even allow the playing of Beethoven. In other words, everything. Germany was an abomination. And that's an extreme form. But equally, at certain times, nationalists say, in order to save the nation, we need to bring people in. This happened to Australia. After the Second World War, Australians were very aware of their vulnerability to the Japanese and their dependence on the Americans. And so they were worried after the Second World War, well, with the decline of Britain, the traditional protector, who will protect us? So the slogan was populate or perish. And up to 1945, almost all the people allowed to immigrate to Australia were British or Irish. After the Second World War, they start encouraging emigration from the Mediterranean countries and later from Asian countries. So it very much depends on where people see the interests of the nation. At some points they're going to be very exclusive. At some points they will be willing to admit the people. And by and large, countries select the kind of people that they want. After all, in the 1960s, because of the needs of the National Health Service, there was a good deal of encouragement of immigration from Africa.
- [19:47]
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- [20:17]
Interviewer/Danny Bird
Now, you've described nations as zones of conflict. Could you explain how internal divisions, both ethnic, linguistic or religious, can paradoxically help forge stronger national identities?
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Dr. John Hutchinson
Yes, I've mentioned the importance of history to nationalists, but the reality is there's never a single history of a nation. There are always different versions. And often there have been civil wars or major conflicts, cleavages in the past. I mean, the civil war in Britain between the Crown and parliamentarians. In Russia, Peter the Great versus the Orthodox Church, or in France, the Revolution versus the aristocracy in the Catholic Church. So these intense divisions then persist in time and lead to different notions of what the authentic nation is. So at times one is dominant, but often at times, a crisis of defeat and war, the other as well can come back up. And in practice, there is intense cultural contestation between these two, and there's often then a crossover between figures. For example, in Russia, there was this division between the Westerners who looked to Peter the Great, who wanted to Westernize Russia, versus the Orthodox, who talked that Russia was a sacred and unique civilization based on Orthodoxy. In time, people realized that Russians were not really accepted properly as Europeans, as others were. But at the same time, they realized that in order to compete to survive in a martial continent like Europe, they also needed to modernize their society. And you see these debates being played out in Turgeniev's Fathers and Sons, a conflict between the generations. And in the end, it's acceptance that for all the differences, there's more that unites the people than divides them. In the First World War, Catholics and Republicans united around the figure of Joan of Arc, who was seen as the archetypal French patriot. She stood for the peasantry, the people idealized by Republicans. At the same time, she was a holy Catholic figure, so she was a uniting force in French society.
- [22:51]
Interviewer/Danny Bird
Are there particular social or economic conditions that seem to make nationalism flourish? For instance, does it often emerge during crises, economic downturns, wars, or periods of rapid change?
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Dr. John Hutchinson
Yes, I think that's certainly the case. The preconditions for a successful nationalist movement again depend on there being a level of literacy in the society, because nationalism is a kind of modernizing phenomenon. It's against traditional rules, it's in favor of political freedom, and so forth. But equally, too, you could say that most people are not aware that they're Nationalist nationalism is an ideology of crisis or sense of difference. Most of the time, people just exist quite placidly. But it's a point of crisis when the old order is in danger. I mean, for example, in contemporary America, the decline of traditional societies, the sense of a white working class losing their status in the society, seeing themselves as under threat from ideas of racial affirmation of minorities. So that is a condition under which kind of xenophobic populist nationalism will emerge. But also a time of war, then that again creates a mobilization. So, yes, people articulate a sense of identity only when that sense of identity is shaken, that the land in which they set their feet is shaking. And that can be economic crisis, depression, mass unemployment. It can be a sense of threat from another ideological force, like communist threat. For example, creating a strong American nationalism after the Second World War with the McCarthy trials are in a sense of religious threat today, where you have significant migration from, say, Muslim countries at the same time as that, there's a religious revival of Islam as a political force in much the Middle East. So that creates fears which again can incite a kind of nationalist mobilization.
- [25:16]
Interviewer/Danny Bird
How do practices like war memorials or remembrance rituals help sacralize national identity, especially in countries that have gone through civil war trauma? How do those societies remember the national past?
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Dr. John Hutchinson
Well, one focus is about nationalism as enabling the emergence of a modern industrial society. But another is the idea that nationalism is the kind of almost political religion of modernity, that it's a force for meaning. You look back in the past as a guide of how to cope with the problems of the present and perhaps articulate plans for the future. Wartime commemoration plays a big role because the history of nationalism, unfortunately, has often been a history of war. The emergence of nationalism in the French Revolution wars, you get the triggering of the civic ideal of nationalism and the French Revolution. But equally counter ethnic nationalism in Germany, which focuses on worship of ancestors and the worship of an ancient past, is a kind of religion which emerges as Christianity begins to lose its force. Christianity answers the question, what persists after death? This notion of you achieve immortality through your travails in this world. Well, the nation is seen as a force that's eternal and that by being part of a nation and contributing to that nation, you itself achieve a kind of immortality. And those people who are single doubter are those who died for the nation. Above all, in war, they are commemorated as the martyrs, like the Christian martyrs of the past. They die for the nation. They die that others might live. So there's the kind of celebration of wartime sacrifice as a means to inspire the survivors to continued sacrifice for the nation. And this is obviously comes to fore in the great ceremonies after the first world war and the remembrance sermon. He's the poppy. Often the claim is, well, the message of the war is never again. In other words, we must remember the sacrifice of the fallen and so we don't have to fight again. So the wartime memory can be ambiguous. It can idealize the martial qualities of the nation, but equally, too, particularly in the 20th century, produce a sense of the pity of war and the pity of national sacrifice. But nevertheless, people get heroized because of their sacrifice.
- [27:59]
Interviewer/Danny Bird
In the aftermath of imperial decline and collapse, such as the fall of the Ottomans or the Habsburgs, how did newly emerging nation states grapple with ethnic pluralism and historical memory? What made some transitions more violent or contested than others?
- [28:15]
Dr. John Hutchinson
Well, yes, that's a very good question. The prelude to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and indeed the Russian Empire and the German empire and the Habsburg Empire in the First World war was increasing nationalist antagonism within their territories. The various nationalist groups were increasingly politicized against empire, and indeed rival empires would encourage the opposition of nationalities and the empires of their enemies. So when war broke out, there was deep suspicion of minorities, and there were various pogroms of forced migrations of minorities during the First World War itself. So when these empires broke apart, there was intense nationalist hatred all around, both for former imperial masters and also for the rival nationalists within the Uran empires. So in practice, it becomes very difficult to create a sense of national harmony. Groups like the Russians after the collapse of the Soviet Union and under Putin and the Turks under Ataturk, there's a sense of grievance against the minorities who seem to be at work with the enemies. And in the Ottoman Empire, of course, you have the Armenian genocide in which the Armenians were scapegoated. And in Russia under Putin, real hatred directed against Ukrainians, because the Ukrainians, for much of Russian history, certainly in the 19th century and 20th century, were seen as a key component of the empire. They were part of the SL corps, along with the Belarusians and the Russians themselves, that made up the heart of the empire. And the breaking away of Ukraine was seen as a grievous blow to many Russian nationalists.
- [30:10]
Interviewer/Danny Bird
A user known as Quinn on Facebook has asked, what is balkanization and how does it relate to nationalism?
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Dr. John Hutchinson
The term balkanization came into being from the experience of the Ottoman Empire. How var European rivals of the Ottoman Empire encouraged the minority and Christian nationalities to revolt. So the revolt of Grace and later the breaking away of Bulgarians and so forth. And then Armenian nationalism. All that was seen as a device to destroy the Ottoman Empire. So the word Balkanization has also been used by African nationalists to, as it were, to deter, after they become independent, to deter foreign countries trying to instigate nationalism amongst their minorities. And they used the term Balkanization to say this is a kind of strategy by outside powers to undermine the integrity and strength of African nations. And in the early years of decolonization, there was even an idea of a kind of union of African states that would be necessary to counteract European powers and the United States and the Soviet Union. And that, as it were, attempts to divide African states against each other were part of a kind of neocolonialist strategy to regain control over Africa. But it's also been applied against secessionist movements within African states, seeing them as the product of malign external forces. So this idea of Balkanization draws from the Ottoman experience, the idea that our state is under threat, foreign powers are trying to divide us, and if they succeed, then we will be humiliated and defeated.
- [32:11]
Interviewer/Danny Bird
Why are there more nations today than there have ever been, Especially when the world is in many ways more interconnected and interdependent than ever?
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Dr. John Hutchinson
Well, again, another good question. Well, the background to this is up to the early 20th century. 80% of the world was controlled by European empires. And these empires have collapsed in world wars, and it's first and second world wars. And then was the Soviet collapse. And from this you get, as it were, the mass production of nation states, many of which are very vulnerable entities. So the world of nation states is quite recent. But at the same time, yes, there's a question, well, why is it that there isn't a kind of global community emerging? One answer is that globalization has been with us for a very long time. Globalization to some extent has preceded the era of nation states. You have global economic networks stretching well before the Middle Ages. Global religions like Islam and Christianity. The Enlightenment is a kind of global intellectual idea. But the, I suppose the main claim is that there never is a kind of global identity. One's notion of what is global or universal is always tied to a particular territory unit. So when the French Revolution expounded universal ideas of mankind, these are specifically French ideas. Similarly, when America is the global power, it's basically American ideas and institutions that are defining the global order. So this creates a reaction in other countries as we're on the receiving end of American economic power or military power, or indeed cultural power. And you get reactions against that the problem is power has to be centered, and by and large, it has to be centered in the state. The state is the most powerful institution in the modern world, and political authority comes from within a state. And until you overcome the existence of states, you will never really get a global order. When you get, say, economic innovations, they're coming significantly from a particular center. Used to be Britain or Germany. So globalization for many was Americanization. I think what we see today with the collapse of the Soviet Union and also the increasing isolationism of America, a retreat from a global order. We're getting into a multipolar world, which will often be associated with particularly powerful states like Russia, China, America.
- [35:14]
Interviewer/Danny Bird
And just off the back of that, John, we've had a question on Facebook from Roberta Alessandra, and she'd like to know how different is nationalism in the 21st century from earlier emanations? Because it seems that it's often wrapped in nostalgia. And how should we interpret the way today's nationalist movements use or misuse history to legitimize their agendas?
- [35:35]
Dr. John Hutchinson
Well, the thing is that nationalism is continuously evolving, depending on its place and time. So that's one of the difficulties talking about nationalism, is that there's so many different nationalisms. So in the 21st century, we're in an era where, I suppose, there is this challenge to a Western global order that came into being after 1945. The United nations was one embodiment of this essentially order which was created by the winners of the Second World War. And now we see the disintegration of this order, in part because, well, there are several forces. One is the rise of China as an economic force. So you get a huge shift of economic power and resources from west to East. You have, in the Middle east and Asia a disillusionment with the failures of socialist nation states and the rise of political religion as a kind of replacement ideology. It can be Islam or Hinduism. And all of this, again, is directed against the hegemony of the West. And of course, now, with communications becoming global, distances narrowed, so movements of population then can be much greater and be from much more distant societies. So all of this creates the conditions for a kind of very reactive nationalism in the West, a nationalism of confusion, in which the old liberal order, economic order, which delivered wealth and stability for peoples and welfare states, economic growth is now under threat. And so you get a sense of panic and hysteria increasingly. And these populist nationalisms that emerged even in the heartland of capitalism in America, again, are a symptom of this sense of Disorder and sense of crisis.
- [37:52]
Interviewer/Danny Bird
Do you think that nostalgia always plays a role in nationalist theory and feeling?
- [37:58]
Dr. John Hutchinson
Obviously there is an aspect of nostalgia looking back to a time where things were more settled. But the return to the past is more than nostalgia. It's a sense of a fear of, well, the existing meaning systems of the world no longer suffice. And it's a desperate search for something better in the past. And hence the tendency to look back to a golden age in which there was much more security, in which the. The nation was a dynamic force. I think the drive back to the past is more than nostalgia. It's trying to articulate, well, we were successful in the past, what was the recipe, what were the ingredients? At the moment, the populist nationalists really aren't coming up with a convincing model of how to reorganize the present so as to achieve solutions to current discontents. So there is a sense of disorder in nationalism, there's confusion in nationalism and competing nationalisms. So I think the present is one of, I think, almost unprecedented a challenge given the mixing of populations, whereas the cultural distinctiveness of the nation, and indeed in foreign policy and security terms, everything seems in flux. Even institutions like NATO seem in flux. And of course above all of this is the climatic crisis which is leading people to a sense of apocalypse at the end of history.
- [39:41]
Interviewer/Danny Bird
Finally, John, as nationalism reshapes everything from domestic politics to global alliances, what historical lessons should we be keeping in mind? Is there a constructive role for nationalism in the future, do you think? Or are we doomed to repeat its darker chapters?
- [39:56]
Dr. John Hutchinson
Well, I think the thing to keep in mind is there are varieties of nationalism. We don't appear to have an alternative to nationalism. Liberals might have hoped for a cosmopolitan market based society, but effectively there are multiple competing market societies. Socialists hope to transcend capitalism, but really that hasn't been a great success. So the nation state and nationalism seem to be with us for better or for worse. The thing to remind yourself is that nationalism doesn't necessarily lead to conflict and lead to cooperation at the social level. A sense of national identity can lead divergent classes to cooperate with each other or different religious groups to cooperate with each other. At the international level. International institutions were built on a kind of liberal internationalism, the idea that nation states were stronger through cooperation. You could argue that the European Union was very much based on this idea. It didn't mean abolishing the nation state. It meant that part of European countries which had empires in the past but now were gravely weakened by the loss of empire and the the rise of America and the Soviet Union knew they had to cooperate if European countries were to be a force in the world. And they needed to cooperate, especially after the economic and military disasters of the Second World War. And to a large extent, it was quite a successful project. And the attempt with the United nations, as it were, to outlaw war, again, it was an order of nation states, so nation states can cooperate together. Unfortunately, they seem to be pulling apart. So I think, again, one has to try to appeal to people's enlightened self interest. They have interest not in isolating themselves from the world or simply commanding resources of another country, but by engaging in economic cooperation, in perhaps federal arrangements, treaty arrangements, to secure common peace. All of these things are at the moment in disarray, but I think they have to be rebuilt.
- [42:25]
Podcast Host
That was John Hutchinson, author of the Dynamics of Cultural nations as Zones of Conflict and Nationalism and War. John mentioned the Armenian genocide in this conversation. Turkey disputes that characterisation. And if you'd like to read more about the historical definition of genocide, Professor Donald Bloxham has written a piece about this, which, if you're a member of History Extra, you can read online@historyextra.com.