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Throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, thinkers understood nations as communities defined by common language, culture, and descent, and sharing strong bonds of belonging and solidarity. Even so, they did not assume that nations would also be appropriate units of government. The recovery of this historical understanding, in turn, yields valuable insights for contemporary political dilemmas. Nations Before the Nation-State offers the first extended study of the idea of the nation in ancient and medieval political thought. It recovers a pre-modern conception of the nation as a cultural and linguistic community, rather than a political association, and examines better means for thinking about nationhood. Offering a historic perspective from which to address challenges of nationalism, this book engages with debates on multiculturalism, liberal nationalism, and constitutional patriotism and argues that contemporary political dilemmas can be resolved more organically by recovering modes of thinking that have resolved similar tensions for centuries.
Info autore
Anna Marisa Schön is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Department of Political Science at Duke University. Her research focuses on medieval political thought, and questions surrounding nationalism, national pluralism, and empire. She has co-translated J. G. Fichte's work on the French Revolution (2021) and her work has appeared in History of Political Thought, British Journal of the History of Philosophy, and Democratic Theory.
Riassunto
The first extended study of nationhood in ancient and medieval political thought, this book recovers a distinctly pre-modern conception of the nation as a cultural and linguistic, yet not political community, and brings historic insights to bear on contemporary political issues such as national pluralism and the resurgence of nationalism.
Prefazione
Novel approach to the problem of nationalism through an extended study of the nation in ancient and medieval political thought.
