Explains why nations elevate images of their own defeat to the center of their symbolism and understanding of their history.

"THis is the first book to camparatively examine nations that emphasize images of their own defeat in their mythology and sense of history. Cases include Serbia, Israel, France, Greece and Ghana. Through exploring this phenomenon, it offers new insights into current theories in the study of nations and nationalism, incorporating approaches from diverse disciplines such as sociology, antropology and the psychology of religion"--

If nationalism is the assertion of legitimacy for a nation and its effectiveness as a political entity, why do many nations emphasize images of their own defeat in understanding their history? Using Israel, Serbia, France, Greece and Ghana as examples, the author argues that this phenomenon exposes the ambivalence that lurks behind the passions nationalism evokes. Symbols of defeat glorify a nation's ancient past, while reenacting the destruction of that past as a necessary step in constructing a functioning modern society. As a result, these symbols often assume a foundational role in national mythology. Threats to such symbols are perceived as threats to the nation itself and consequently are met with desperation difficult for outsiders to understand.

What is nationalism and how can we study it from a historical perspective? Writing the History of Nationalism answers this question by examining eleven historical approaches to nationalism studies in theory and practice. An impressive cast of contributors cover the history of nationalism from a wide range of thematic approaches, from traditional modernist and Marxist perspectives to more recent debates around gender. postcolonialism and the global turn in history writing. This book is essential reading for undergraduate students of history, politics and sociology wanting to understand the complex yet fascinating history of nationalism.

Sborník vybraných příspěvků z 19. až 23. ročníku Mezinárodního setkání mladých lingvistů má název Jazyky v pohybu a potenciál změny. Tímto titulem jsou avizována témata, jež rezonovala mezi mladší generací lingvistů v letech 2018 až 2022 a jež jim byla inspirací k výzkumu a zpracování. 21. století je přitom vnímáno jako věk pohybu, kde nezbytným instrumentem je právě jazyk. Ten je nucen překračovat hranice mezi etnickými, kulturními a sociálními skupinami a vstřebávat přitom z okolního světa nové a nové intralingvistické i extralingvistické impulsy. Sborníkové příspěvky se týkají nejen tohoto hlavního tématu, ale i témat dalších, zpracovávaných a roz víjených v jednotlivých workshopech, např. v již tradičním workshopu diachronním, workshopu věnovaném češtině jako cizímu jazyku nebo ve workshopu kognitivním, mediálním, translatologickém či interkulturní komunikace. The proceedings of selected papers from the 19th to 23rd International Meeting of Young Linguists are entitled Languages in Motion and the Potential for Change. This title announces the themes that have resonated among the younger generation of linguists between 2018 and 2022 and that have inspired them to research and elaborate. It is forced to cross boundaries between ethnic, cultural and social groups, absorbing new and new intralinguistic and extralinguistic impulses from the outside world. The contributions in the proceedings cover not only this main topic, but also other topics, elaborated and developed in individual workshops, e.g. in the traditional diachronic workshop, the workshop devoted to Czech as a foreign language, or in the cognitive, media, translatological or intercultural communication workshops.

Myths are a major, universal sociological mechanism which is still rather poorly understood Demonstrates the relevance and the potential of myths as a research area Provides a timely shift in the usual focus of national studies, which typically centers on ethnicity, immigration, integration, citizenship, cultural diversity and nationalism Demonstrates the nature and the functioning of myths in contemporary societies, as a nexus of meanings that feed identities, memory and utopias Contributions from international authors

What does it mean to win a moral victory? Ideals of just and decisive triumphs often colour the call to war, yet victory is an increasingly dubious proposition in modern conflict, where negotiated settlements and festering violence have replaced formal surrenders. In the Just War and strategic studies traditions, assumptions about victory also underpin decisions to go to war but become more problematic in discussions about its conduct and conclusion. So although winning is typically considered the very object of war, we lack a clear understanding of victory itself. Likewise, we lack reliable resources for discerning a just from an unjust victory, for balancing the duty to fight ethically with the obligation to win, and for assessing the significance of changing ways of war for moral judgment. Though not amenable to easy answers, these important questions are both perennial and especially urgent. This book brings together a group of leading scholars from various disciplines to tackle them. It covers both traditions of victory - charting the historically variable notion of victory and the dialogues and fissures this opens in the just war and strategic canons - along with contemporary challenges of victory- analysing how new security contexts put pressure on these fissures and working toward clearer ideas about victory today. The result is a wide-ranging and timely collection of essays that bridges the gap between ethical, strategic, and historical approaches to war and develops new ways of thinking about it as a practical and moral proposition.

A careful analysis of the social media campaigns of Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, and the Brexit campaigners, which shows how today's new nationalists are cultivating support from white majorities by tapping into their history and culture. Across the West, there has been a resurgence of ethnic nationalism, populism, and anti-immigrant sentiment - a phenomenon that many commentators have called the "new nationalism." In The New Nationalism in America and Beyond, Robert Schertzer and Eric Taylor Woods seek to understand why the bastions of liberalism are proving to be fertile ground for a decidedly illiberal ideology. To do so, they examine the social media campaigns of three of the most successful exemplars of the new nationalism: Donald Trump in the US, Marine Le Pen in France, and Brexit in the UK. Schertzer and Woods show how today's new nationalists are cultivating support from white majorities by drawing from long-standing myths and symbols to construct an image of the nation as an ethnic community. Their cutting-edge and multidisciplinary approach combines elements of political science, sociology, history, and communication and media studies, to show how leaders today are updating the historical foundations of ethnic nationalism for the digital age.

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.

Focusing on the era in which the modern idea of nationalism emerged as a way of establishing the preferred political, cultural, and social order for society, this book demonstrates that across different European societies the most important constituent of nationalism has been a specific understanding of the nation's historical past. Analysing Ireland and Germany, two largely unconnected societies in which the past was peculiarly contemporary in politics and where the meaning of the nation was highly contested, this volume examines how narratives of origins, religion, territory and race produced by historians who were central figures in the cultural and intellectual histories of both countries interacted; it also explores the similarities and differences between the interactions in these societies. Histories of Nationalism in Ireland and Germany investigates whether we can speak of a particular common form of nationalism in Europe. The book draws attention to cultural and intellectual links between the Irish and the Germans during this period, and what this meant for how people in either society understood their national identity in a pivotal time for the development of the historical discipline in Europe. Contributing to a growing body of research on the 'transnationality' of nationalism, this new study of a hitherto-unexplored area will be of interest to historians of modern Germany and Ireland, comparative and transnational historians, and students and scholars of nationalism, as well as those interested in the relationship between biography and writing history.