The book examines the power of nationalism to solder nation-states back together rather than break them apart. In this innovative, cross-continental comparison of nation-building in Germany and Vietnam, the focus is on their shared experience of division, communism and regional integration, offering original insights into how governments go about maintaining nation-state legitimacy in the twenty-first century. Neither German nor Vietnamese governments have succeeded in effacing national division, for a host of historical, economic, psychological, sociological and even climatic reasons. Yet their efforts tell us a great deal about how national identity is negotiated today. The study offers a fresh perspective on nationalist ideology which will be of interest to specialists and students in comparative politics, European and Southeast Asian studies as well as nationalism studies. For the general reader, it provides a fascinating introduction to contemporary nation-building in a unique combination of cases across two continents.

This collection of new essays explores how Germany's imagined Asia informed its national fantasies at crucial historical junctures. It will influence future scholarly explorations of Asian-German cultural transfer. The first collection of essays in the new field of Asian-German Studies, Imagining Germany Imagining Asia demonstrates that Germany and Asia have always shared cultural spaces. Indeed, since the time of the German Enlightenment, Asia served as the foil for fantasies of sexuality, escape, danger, competition, and racial and spiritual purity that were central to foundational ideas of a cohesive German national culture during crucial historical junctures such as fascism or reunification. By exploring the complex and varied phenomenon of German "Orientalism," these essays argue that the relation between an imagined Germany and an imagined Asia defies the idea of a one-way influence, instead conceiving of their cultural transfers and synergies as multidirectional and mutually perpetuating. Examining literary and non-literary texts from the eighteenth century to the present, these essays cover a wide rangeof topics and genres in disciplines including philosophy, film and visual culture, theater, literary studies, and the history of science. Ideally positioned to shape further contributions, Imagining Germany Imagining Asiawill attract a wide range of readers interested in German, Asian, colonial, postcolonial, and transnational studies. Contributors: Sai Bhatawadekar, Petra Fachinger, Veronika Fuechtner, Randall Halle, David D. Kim, Hoi-eun Kim, Kamakshi Murti, Perry Myers, Mary Rhiel, Qinna Shen, Quinn Slobodian, Chunjie Zhang Veronika Fuechtner is Associate Professor of German at Dartmouth College. Mary Rhiel is Associate Professor of German at the University of New Hampshire.

This major new text assesses the persistence of nationalism in a globalizing world and analyses the current nature and future prospects of this multi-faceted and evolving ideology.

In keeping with the tenets of socialist internationalism, the political culture of the German Democratic Republic strongly emphasized solidarity with the non-white world: children sent telegrams to Angela Davis in prison, workers made contributions from their wages to relief efforts in Vietnam and Angola, and the deaths of Patrice Lumumba, Ho Chi Minh, and Martin Luther King, Jr. inspired public memorials. Despite their prominence, however, scholars have rarely examined such displays in detail. Through a series of illuminating historical investigations, this volume deploys archival research, ethnography, and a variety of other interdisciplinary tools to explore the rhetoric and reality of East German internationalism.

Since the attempt to unite two parts of a country divided for four decades yielded contradictory results, this volume provides a balance sheet of the successes and failures of German unification during the first quarter century after the fall of the Wall. Five themes, ranging from the transfer of political institutions to the economic crisis, from the social upheaval for women’s movements to the cultural efforts at interpretation and the changes in foreign policy have been chosen to illustrate the complexity of the process. The contributors represent a broad interdisciplinary mix of political scientists, historians, and literary scholars. Because personal experiences tend to color scholarly judgments, they are drawn from West Germany, East Germany, and the United States. This collection is the most up-to-date and comprehensive assessment of the political, social, and intellectual consequences of the efforts to regain German unity.

Wittlinger takes a fresh look at German national identity in the 21st century and shows that it has undergone considerable changes since unification in 1990. Due to the external pressures of the post-cold war world and recent domestic developments, Germany has re-emerged as a nation which is less hesitant to assert its national interest.

This book develops new ways of thinking beyond the nation as a form of political community by seeking to transcend ethnonational categories of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Drawing on scholarship and cases spanning Pacific Asia and Europe, it steps outside assumptions linking nation to state. Accessible yet theoretically rich, it explores how to think about nationhood beyond narrow binaries and even broader cosmopolitan ideals. Using cutting-edge critical research, it fundamentally challenges the positive connotations of British patriotism and UK politics’ increasingly shrill anti-immigrant discourse, pointing to how these continue to reproduce vocabularies of belonging that are dependent on ethnonational and racialised categorisations. With a cross-continental focus, this book offers alternative ways of thinking about togetherness and belonging that are premised on mobility rather than rootedness, thereby providing a constructive agenda for critical nationalism studies.

Despite many predictions made over the last two hundred years that nation-states and nationalism are transient phenomena that will eventually fade away, the historical record and contemporary events show otherwise. Nationalism still remains the most popular, potent and resilient ideological discourse and the nation-state the only legitimate mode of territorial rule. This innovative and concise book provides an in-depth analysis of the processes involved in the emergence, formation, expansion and transformation of nation-states and nationalisms as they are understood today. Sinisa Malesevic examines the historical predecessors of nation-states (from hunting and gathering bands, through city-states, to modernizing empires) and explores the historical rise of organizational and ideological powers that eventually gave birth to the modern nation-state. The book also investigates the ways in which nationalist ideologies were able to envelop the microcosm of family, kin, residential and friendship networks. Other important topics covered along the way include: the relationships between nationalism and violence; the routine character of nationalist experience; and the impacts of globalization and religious revivals on the transformation of nationalisms and nation-states. This insightful analysis of nationalisms and nation-states through time and space will appeal to scholars and students in sociology, politics, history, anthropology, international relations and geography.

This handbook presents a comprehensive survey of the formation and transformation of nationalism in 15 East and Southeast Asian countries. Written by a team of international scholars from different backgrounds and disciplines, this volume offers new perspectives on studying Asian history, society, culture, and politics, and provides readers with a unique lens through which to better contextualise and understand the relationships between countries within East and Southeast Asia, and between Asia and the world. It highlights the latest developments in the field and contributes to our knowledge and understanding of nationalism and nation building. Comprehensive and clearly written, this book examines a diverse set of topics that include theoretical considerations on nationalism and internationalism; the formation of nationalism and national identity in the colonial and postcolonial eras; the relationships between traditional culture, religion, ethnicity, education, gender, technology, sport, and nationalism; the influence of popular culture on nationalism; and politics, policy, and national identity. It illustrates how nationalism helped to draw the borders between the nations of East and Southeast Asia, and how it is re-emerging in the twenty-first century to shape the region and the world into the future. The Routledge Handbook of Nationalism in East and Southeast Asia is essential reading for those interested in and studying Asian history, Social and Cultural history, and modern history.

Citizenship studies is at a crucial moment of globalizing as a field. What used to be mainly a European, North American, and Australian field has now expanded to major contributions featuring scholarship from Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The Routledge Handbook of Global Citizenship Studies takes into account this globalizing moment. At the same time, it considers how the global perspective exposes the strains and discords in the concept of ‘citizenship’ as it is understood today. With over fifty contributions from international, interdisciplinary experts, the Handbook features state-of-the-art analyses of the practices and enactments of citizenship across broad continental regions (Africas, Americas, Asias and Europes) as well as deterritorialized forms of citizenship (Diasporicity and Indigeneity). Through these analyses, the Handbook provides a deeper understanding of citizenship in both empirical and theoretical terms. This volume sets a new agenda for scholarly investigations of citizenship. Its wide-ranging contributions and clear, accessible style make it essential reading for students and scholars working on citizenship issues across the humanities and social sciences.