"Invoked by politicians, promoted in policy, and sought by migrants, citizenship is a crucial marker of what makes being a member of society valuable, and of what membership entails in a world of fluid boundaries. This volume explores questions of admission to the state and to c…
In a year that sees a Scottish referendum on independence, the author analyses some of the forces that have unified Britain in the past. She examines the mythology of Britishness, and how far and why it has faded. She discusses the Acts of Union with Wales, Scotland and Ireland,…
Political wisdom holds that the political boundaries of a state necessarily coincide with a nation's perceived cultural boundaries, but sociocultural diversity increasingly renders this view obsolete. The 'state-nation' is a concept that seeks to accommodate distinct ethnic & cu…
As evidenced in these essays, Kaviraj's exceptional technique positions Indian politics within the political philosophy of the West and alongside perspectives from Indian history and indigenous political thought.
Boorstin describes how 'pseudo-events'(events such as press conferences and presidential debates, manufactured solely in order to be reported) and 'celebrity' (a 'person known for his well-knownness') combine to create a vision of American culture inundated by its own illusions.
Chapters: Introduction: The problem of nationalism in post-apartheid South africa --The raw material of nation-building --Who are South Africans? --Nationalism and the end of apartheid --Legacies --Improvising the nation, 1990-1996 --Beyond the improvised nation --Over the rainb…
More than ever before, those in the poorest countries-the bottom billion-feel the lure of greater opportunities beyond their borders. Indeed, the scale of migration driven by international inequality is so massive that it could make nations as we know them obsolete. In Exodus, w…
Explores Ukraine's contemporary conflict and complicated history of ethnic identity, and it does do so by weaving questions of the country's fraught relations with its former imperial master, Russia, throughout the narrative.
This text addresses the pitfalls of border drawing in post-WWI Europe, arguing that at international and local levels, the 'temptation of violence' made national self-determination problematic, as local elites, administrations and paramilitary leaders used ethnic notions of iden…
Addressing one of the most politically turbulent periods in modern British history, philosopher Roger Scruton asks how, in these circumstances, we can come to define our identity, and what in the coming years will hold us together. To what are our duties owed and why? How do we …
"We live in a world in which being a 'citizen' of a state and being a 'national' are by no means the same. Amidst much scholarly debate about 'nations' and 'nationalism', comparatively little has been written explicitly on 'national identity' and a great deal less is solidly evi…
