Skip to content
ContemporaryIntermediateBook

National Identity

Anthony D. Smith

Nationalism studies

It is a central text in nationalism studies and the ethnosymbolist account of national identity.

Synopsis

A study of how nations form, arguing that modern national identities draw on deep ethnic and cultural roots rather than pure invention.

Core passage idea

Paraphrase · Modern copyrighted work

Modern nations are built on pre-existing ethnic ties, myths, memories, and symbols, not merely conjured by industrial states.

It positions national identity between purely modern construction and ancient primordial bonds.

To avoid a bubble

Pair with Imagined Communities.

Reading note

Read it within the scholarly debate between modernist and ethnosymbolist theories of the nation.

Best paired with

Imagined Communities

Find this book

Reading paths that include National Identity

Compare these traditions