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Anthony Smith has criticized my conclusion that most of the peoples currently recognized as constituting nations acquired national consciousness only in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries. He traces our disagreement to fundamental differences concerning the essence of the nation. A comparison of our definitions confirms profound differences, and it is contended that Smith's definitions, by joining two quite dissimilar and often conflictual identities (civic and ethnic) preclude a dialogue concerning the nature and the history of ‘the nation’. A rejoinder to Smith's specific criticisms is followed by a restatement of the factors that make calculating when a given nation emerged so difficult. Finally, it is noted that the issue of when a nation came into being is not of key significance: while in factual/chronological history a nation may be of recent vintage, in the popular perception of its members, it is ‘eternal’, ‘beyond time’, ‘timeless’. And it is not facts but perceptions of facts that shape attitudes and behavior.

This article examines the degree to which autonomy is apt to satisfy the political aspirations of minority peoples living within their own homeland. Drawing from historical and contemporary examples, it argues that homeland dwelling national groups not always aspire to complete independence, although ethnonational aspirations must presume substantive autonomy at a minimum

Those charged with designing or implementing policies to placate minorities ensconced in their own homelands face two levels of problems. The first, the urge of minorities to control their own destinies and therefore to resent and resist rule by outsiders, is common to all multi-homeland states. The second set of problems evolves from each country’s unique experience. What follows is a discussion of both of these frameworks, within which current Chinese minority policies necessarily operate and that are apt to influence the relative success of those policies.

Despite the extensive effort that generations of chroniclers and analysts have devoted to the history of Europe and its peoples, assigning dates to the acquisition of national consciousness by any of Europe’s roughly fifty national groups remains a most contentious undertaking. Disagreement is very conspicuous in the writings of some of the last generation’s distinguished historians. To the French medieval authority, Marc Bloch, for example, ‘the texts make it plain that so far as France and Germany were concerned this national consciousness was already highly developed about the year 1100’; Bloch felt the same could be said of the English. ’ Others placed the rise of national consciousness among the major peoples of Western Europe at only a slightly later date. The Dutch scholar, Johan Huizinga, perceived national consciousness evolving throughout the Middle Ages, and considered French and English nationalism to be ‘in full flower’ by the 14th century.2 The British historian, George Coulton, agreed; basing his analysis on the foreign alignments of the Italian states, France, England, Scotland, Germany, Hungary, Flanders, and Spain during the late 13OOs, he concluded that ‘by this time, the nationalism towards which Europe had been evolving for three centuries past was accepted not only as a social fact but as a fundamental factor in European politics.‘3 Another British scholar, Sydney Herbert, concurred that ‘the idea of nationality (began to) appear in real force [as] medieval society was dying’; he asserted that the Scottish 13th century ‘fierce resistance to an English overlord, provides one of the first examples of nationalism in action’, and he added that ‘if the Hundred Years War (1337-1453) between France and England is as far as possible from being a national war in its origins, yet toward its close genuine nationality appears, splendid and triumphant, with Jeanne d’Arc’.4 In an article dedicated to the early stirring of national consciousness among the English, the American scholar, Barnaby Keeney, concluded

Although numerous authorities have addressed the question, ‘What is a nation?’, far less attention has been paid to the question, ‘At what point in its development does a nation come into being?’ Evidence is offered that Europe's currently recognized nations emerged only very recently, often centuries later than the dates customarily assigned. In some cases, it is problematic whether nationhood has even yet been achieved. Four problems involved in dating the emergence of a nation are: (1) national consciousness is a mass not an elite phenomenon, and the masses, until quite recently semi‐ or totally illiterate, were quite mute with regard to their sense of group identity(ies); (2) nation‐formation is a process, not an occurrence, and the point in the process at which a sufficient number has internalized the national identity in order to cause nationalism to become an effective force for mobilizing the masses does not lend itself to precise calculation; (3) the process of nation‐formation is not se...

Comparative data make evident that the ability of a diaspora to influence the foreign policy of a country in which the diaspora dwells varies greatly from one society to another. For example, as Gabriel Sheffer details elsewhere in this volume, the Jewish diaspora within the United States has exerted great influence over Washington’s Middle East policy. But in no other country has a Jewish diaspora been able to exert comparable leverage.