Overview

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.

Full Product Details

Author:   Anna Marisa Schön (Duke University, North Carolina)
Publisher:   Cambridge University Press
Imprint:   Cambridge University Press
ISBN:  

9781009441216

ISBN 10:   1009441213
Pages:   236
Publication Date:   21 November 2024
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available, will be POD  
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon it's release. This is a print on demand item which is still yet to be released.

Table of Contents

Part I. Introduction: A Plan for Rethinking the Nation: 1. The nation-state paradigm; 2. A project of conceptual recovery; 3. Political imagination; 4. Liberal multiculturalism and constitutional patriotism; 5. Selection of sources and overview of the book; 6. Some preliminary conclusions; Part II. What Is a Nation? A Brief Historiography of Theories of the Nation: 1. Romantic beginnings; 2. Classical modernism and the state; 3. The modernist bogeyman; 4. Ethno-symbolism and its critics; 5. Getting our history less wrong; Part III. A Tale of Two Fatherlands: Ancient Conceptions of Nationhood: 1. Ancient sources of Hellenicity; 2. Greek patriotism; 3. The bonds of humanity; 4. Roman citizenship and legal pluralism; 5. Nations in the vulgate; 6. Religion, Law, and Peoplehood in Biblical Judaea; Part IV. Post-Roman Transitions: National Identity in the Wake of the Empire: 1. Cassiodorus' imperial propaganda; 2. Ethnonyms and etymologies; 3. Isidore's appropriation of empire; 4. Historiography as political theory; Part V. Medieval Imperialism: National Diversity and Universal Order: 1. World government and its alternatives; 2. Dante imagines the nation; 3. Humanity's intellectual unity; 4. Difference as punishment, difference as pleasure; 5. Consent as the foundation of empire; Part VI. Nationality and the Medieval 'State' in France: 1. Medieval international relations; 2. Dubois' multinational vision for the holy land; 3. A pre-national defense of political particularism; 4. Participatory citizenship in the footsteps of marsiglio of Padua; 5. Love for king and country; Part VII. The Nation at a Crossroads: 1. Absolute and limited government in the thought of John Fortescue; 2. Royal absolutism and the pursuit of uniformity; 3. Nationalizing the state, politicizing the nation; 4. One king, one law, one nation; 5. The myth of antiquity; 6. English exceptionalism revisited; Part VIII. Conclusions: Rekindling Ancient and Medieval Concepts: 1. Lessons from imperialism; 2. The opening and closure of political life; 3. We are bundles of hyphens; 4. New quests for solidarity; Bibliography.

Reviews

'Anna Marisa Schön's book has helped me to think broadly and deeply about the history of political thought. … Elegantly written and clearly structured, the volume takes readers on a memorable tour of historiographical theories and the history of the concept of nation and nationality … Schön makes a case well worth considering, whether or not one is finally persuaded, that politics and political theory today can benefit from recalling early meanings of nation and situating the nation in its proper place, between the polis and empire, in theory and practice.' Mary M. Keys, Professor of Political Science, University of Notre Dame 'In this monumental study, Anna Marisa Schön offers an ambitious vision of the emergence of the idea of nationhood in the West … The shibboleth among scholars is that it is meaningless or even dangerously misguided to speak of a 'nation' prior to some precise moment in modern European history … Schön demonstrates that this narrative embraces a fundamental category error, namely, that the idea of 'nation' cannot be separated from the 'nation-state' or a principle of territorial sovereignty … Schön's analyses are well-informed in terms of primary sources as well as up-to-date secondary literature. Her accomplishment is singular in both its depth and breadth.' Cary J. Nederman, Professor of Political Science, Texas A&M University

'Anna Marisa Sch�n's book has helped me to think broadly and deeply about the history of political thought. ... Elegantly written and clearly structured, the volume takes readers on a memorable tour of historiographical theories and the history of the concept of nation and nationality ... Sch�n makes a case well worth considering, whether or not one is finally persuaded, that politics and political theory today can benefit from recalling early meanings of nation and situating the nation in its proper place, between the polis and empire, in theory and practice.' Mary M. Keys, Professor of Political Science, University of Notre Dame 'In this monumental study, Anna Marisa Sch�n offers an ambitious vision of the emergence of the idea of nationhood in the West ... The shibboleth among scholars is that it is meaningless or even dangerously misguided to speak of a 'nation' prior to some precise moment in modern European history ... Sch�n demonstrates that this narrative embraces a fundamental category error, namely, that the idea of 'nation' cannot be separated from the 'nation-state' or a principle of territorial sovereignty ... Sch�n's analyses are well-informed in terms of primary sources as well as up-to-date secondary literature. Her accomplishment is singular in both its depth and breadth.' Cary J. Nederman, Professor of Political Science, Texas A&M University

Author Information

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.

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