Page 37 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

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juridical, policing, infrastructural, and increasingly edu- in the construction of nationhood. For Colley, the oppo-
cational responsibilities. If state coercive power was cen- sition to Catholic and absolutist France was crucial to the
tralized, its administrative power began to make itself felt construction to British national identity in the eighteenth
in almost all aspects of social life. century. Marx makes a stronger case: for him, an essen-
tial component in the formation of national identities
Economic was the repudiation of some identifiable other. Early-
The most important economic change was the spread of sixteenth-century Spain selected the Jews, and most
capitalist market relations. Ultimately this was to lead to nations followed suit. For England, the exclusion of Cath-
industrialization, but that came much too late (in Britain, olics helped unify the otherwise heterogeneous Protes-
in the late eighteenth century; in Europe, North America, tants. No doubt internal factors, such as those listed
Japan in the eighteenth, and in other places even later) to above, also played a role. However, it is plausible to sug-
explain the emergence of nationalism (as against Gellner gest that a contrast with what is other is necessary for a
1983).As market relations spread, previously self-sufficient unified identity.All too often, the other is conceived of as
rural communities found themselves dependent on a a threat that must be repudiated. Religious, racial, and
wider network of production and distribution.The emer- ethnic exclusions lurk uncomfortably close to the surface
gence of a labor market encouraged population move- of the most civilized national cultures.
ment.Transport, both of goods and of people, improved. These four features do not provide a full explanation
If the market was always global in its reach, the most of the rise of nationalism. History is too full of contin-
intensive development took place within the borders of gencies for this to be possible. But they provided the
well-established states, such as England and France. If the environment within which the nationalist project became
market was not a sufficient explanation of nationalism possible and, for many, inevitable.
(as some Marxists may have believed), it defined the so-
cial space on which national identities were constructed.
Premodern Nationalisms?
Cultural Once we have a reasonably clear understanding of
Perhaps the single most important development was nationalism it becomes a broadly empirical question
what Anderson (1991, 37–46) called “print capitalism”— whether there were premodern nationalisms. There are,
the explosion in the production and dissemination of however, reasons to be skeptical. For much of world his-
texts, increasingly in vernacular languages. If religious tory, the idea that it was the culture which political elites
texts (especially the Bible) were initially most important, shared with those over whom they ruled that was the jus-
other text-based cultural forms (political tracts, scandal tification for their political rule would not have seemed
sheets, magazines, plays, eventually novels) developed to plausible.This does not mean that there were not latent
take advantage of the new opportunities for influence and cultural similarities between ruling elites and their sub-
markets.The spread of literacy made these products avail- jects. Both John A. Armstrong (1982) and Anthony D.
able to a large audience. If market relations were eroding Smith (1986) have argued that the early nationalisms of
the diversity of cultural forms characteristic of peasant Western Europe were able to draw on the cultural
life, the development of print-based culture made more resources these provided. (Both Armstrong and Smith
encompassing and richer forms of identity available. conceive these similarities on ethnic lines. This is mis-
leading. Religion and other cultural features were more
Difference important than descent.) However, these cultural ties
Many historians of nationalism (e.g., Colley 1992, Marx seem to have played relatively little political role and it
2003) emphasize the role of real or imaginary differences would be a mistake to think of them as constituting