Word: greenfelds
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...particular she distinguishes between civic-individual and ethnic nationalism. While either could conceivably give rise to liberal or authoritarian regimes, Greenfeld points out that historically, ethnic nationalism has shown a particular propensity towards collective authoritarian political systems. Greenfeld, in the last chapter of her book, portrays America as closest to the pure idea of a nation; it is a type of the civic-individual nationalism which laid the basis of individual liberty and liberal democracy. Unlike France, Germany and Russia, which are collective nationalities, Greenfeld holds that American nationalism never aspired to homogeneity...
...distinction between the types of nationalism is crucial to Greenfeld. "This is the most important idea of the book--that nationalism is not a uniform phenomenon," she says. "It is the basis of the best in our world... and of the worst." While at first glance such a statement may seem a concession to particularism--that is, an apology that no conclusion can be drawn from the nationalist experience--such an understanding of Greenfeld's reluctance to make sweeping generalizations would be erroneous...
...Greenfeld does see a common denominator among the different "nationalisms": their function as status guarantors. "If there is something that unifies [nations], it is this guarantee of dignity," says Greenfeld, "but they can provide dignity in many different ways, which explains the variations between different nationalist experiences...
Indeed, the underlying explanation Greenfeld provides for the ubiquity of national identities is the individual's desire for status. "It would be a strong statement, but no overstatement, to say that the world in which we live was brought into being by vanity," she writes. "The role of vanity--or desire for status--in social transformations has been greatly underestimated.... In all the five cases in this book, however, the emergence of nationalism was related to preoccupation with status...
...humans have always been and arguably always will be innately power-hungry and driven by ambition. A major criticism of the work rests on the fact that much of Greenfeld's theory relies on an immutable human characteristic, leaving little room for explanation of how the end of the age of nationalism will come about. While Greenfeld does not claim nationalism is here to stay, she realizes she cannot provide insight into how such a change can come about...