Nationalism: A Short History.

Nearly three decades ago, Liah Greenfeld published an impressive history of nationalism, of which this trim volume is a fit summary. Greenfeld locates nationalism in the ideal of the I equality i of the people, and places it in the fifteenth century, well before the Enlightenment or even the Reformation. A more adequate theory of nationalism would be both more materialist and less secularist, more sharply postcolonial and less eager to excise Christianity's positive influence on notions of equality and freedom. [Extracted from the article]