This compelling book argues that it is wrong to assume that nations are culturally uniform. Hutchinson provocatively asserts that resting on older diverse ethnic identities, nations adapt from the unpredictable challenges of modernity, and such plurality makes them prone to cultural wars.

This compelling book argues that it is wrong to assume that nations are culturally uniform. Hutchinson provocatively asserts that resting on older diverse ethnic identities, nations adapt from the unpredictable challenges of modernity, and such plurality makes them prone to cultural wars.

This compelling book argues that it is wrong to assume that nations are culturally uniform. Hutchinson provocatively asserts that resting on older diverse ethnic identities, nations adapt from the unpredictable challenges of modernity, and such plurality makes them prone to cultural wars.

This interdisciplinary book is the first systematic study of the relationship between nationalism and war and, as such, makes an original contribution to theories of nationalism and state formation. It offers a dynamic and interactive framework by which to understand the role of warfare in its changing manifestations in the rise of nation-states, the formation of national communities, definitions of political rights and duties, and the transformation from a world of empires to one of nation states. Nationalism and War scrutinizes existing approaches that view both nations and nationalism as recent products of martial state-building that began with the military revolutions in Europe, and argues that nationalism and national communities emerged independently in the Middle Ages to shape both war-making and state-building. This book also explores the connection between war commemoration and the creation of nations as sacralized communities that offer meaning and purpose to a world marked by unpredictable change. It shows how nationalist military revolutions led to the downfall of Empires in total war and the mass production of postcolonial nation states. But problems of security have also inspired recurring patterns of re-imperialization. This book refutes claims that we are now in a global and post-national era where traumatic accounts have replaced the heroic narratives that once sustained nation-states. Finally, it appraises approaches that claim there is an inherent connection between nationalism and collective violence, arguing such connections are largely contingent.

In this book, militarization, nationalism, and globalization are scrutinized at sites of violent conflict from a range of feminist pespectives.

This book examines how multinationals can promote peace and stability in conflict regions. The authors interviewed CEOs of multinationals working in challenging countries such as Afghanistan, Burma and Rwanda, outlining the ingredients for an approach that can best lead to positive outcomes for business, people and the environment.

This exciting new book is the first to offer a truly comprehensive account of the vibrant topic of nationalism. Packed with a series of rich, illustrative examples, the book examines this powerful and remarkable political force by exploring: - Definitions of nationalism - Language and nationalism - Religion and Nationalism - Nationalist history - The social roots of ideologies and the significance of race, gender and class - Nationalist movements, from dominant majorities to peripheral minorities socio-economic and sociological perspectives - State responses to nationalism Supported by a number of helpful illustrations, tables and diagrams, the text is both engaging and highly informative. Nationalism, Ethnicity and the State: Making and Breaking Nations will prove an insightful read for both undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers in the area of Politics and International Relations.

How nations move from war to peace Is the world destined to suffer endless cycles of conflict and war? Can rival nations become partners and establish a lasting and stable peace? How Enemies Become Friends provides a bold and innovative account of how nations escape geopolitical competition and replace hostility with friendship. Through compelling analysis and rich historical examples that span the globe and range from the thirteenth century through the present, foreign policy expert Charles Kupchan explores how adversaries can transform enmity into amity—and he exposes prevalent myths about the causes of peace. Kupchan contends that diplomatic engagement with rivals, far from being appeasement, is critical to rapprochement between adversaries. Diplomacy, not economic interdependence, is the currency of peace; concessions and strategic accommodation promote the mutual trust needed to build an international society. The nature of regimes matters much less than commonly thought: countries, including the United States, should deal with other states based on their foreign policy behavior rather than on whether they are democracies. Kupchan demonstrates that similar social orders and similar ethnicities, races, or religions help nations achieve stable peace. He considers many historical successes and failures, including the onset of friendship between the United States and Great Britain in the early twentieth century, the Concert of Europe, which preserved peace after 1815 but collapsed following revolutions in 1848, and the remarkably close partnership of the Soviet Union and China in the 1950s, which descended into open rivalry by the 1960s. In a world where conflict among nations seems inescapable, How Enemies Become Friends offers critical insights for building lasting peace.

How do ordinary people navigate the intense uncertainty of the onset of war? Different individuals mobilize in different ways—some flee, some pick up arms, and some support armed actors as civil war begins. Drawing on nearly two hundred in-depth interviews with participants and nonparticipants in the Georgian-Abkhaz war of 1992–1993, Anastasia Shesterinina explores Abkhaz mobilization decisions during that conflict. Her fresh approach underscores the uncertain nature of the first days of the war when Georgian forces had a preponderance of manpower and arms. Mobilizing in Uncertainty demonstrates, in contrast to explanations that assume individuals know the risk involved in mobilization and make decisions based on that knowledge, that the Abkhaz anticipated risk in ways that were affected by their earlier experiences and by social networks at the time of mobilization. What Shesterinina uncovers is that to make sense of the violence, Abkhaz leaders, local authority figures, and others relied on shared understandings of the conflict and their roles in it—collective conflict identities—that they had developed before the war. As appeals traveled across society, people consolidated mobilization decisions within small groups of family and friends and based their actions on whom they understood to be threatened. Their decisions shaped how the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict unfolded and how people continued to mobilize during and after the war. Through this detailed analysis of Abkhaz mobilization from prewar to postwar, Mobilizing in Uncertainty sheds light on broader processes of violence, which have lasting effects on societies marked by intergroup conflict.

• A New Republic Best Book of the Year • The Globalist Top Books of the Year • Winner of the Maine Literary Award for Non-fiction Particularly relevant in understanding who voted for who during presidential elections, this is an endlessly fascinating look at American regionalism and the eleven “nations” that continue to shape North America According to award-winning journalist and historian Colin Woodard, North America is made up of eleven distinct nations, each with its own unique historical roots. In American Nations he takes readers on a journey through the history of our fractured continent, offering a revolutionary and revelatory take on American identity, and how the conflicts between them have shaped our past and continue to mold our future. From the Deep South to the Far West, to Yankeedom to El Norte, Woodard (author of American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good) reveals how each region continues to uphold its distinguishing ideals and identities today, with results that can be seen in the composition of the U.S. Congress or on the county-by-county election maps of any hotly contested election in our history.