This book offers a new understanding of the historical origins of nationalism, combined with an explanation of the initial formation of European nations. It challenges the currently dominant view among historians and sociologists that nationalism is to be seen as a uniquely modern phenomenon established by industrialisation and mass communication in the nineteenth century. While acknowledging the stimulating effect of this so-called ‘modernist’ view, I argue that its leading tenets are theoretically unsound and historically untenable. The book also challenges the previous critics of ‘modernist’ theories, who advocate an integration of pre-modern periods into the study of nationalism. While recognising the validity of many of their objections, I maintain that they have so far not provided a convincing counter-theory, which could successfully challenge the modernist narrative. This book claims to present a more accurate picture of the formation of nations by developing such a counter-theory – and it also claims to offer a historical explanation of why nations and nationalism, despite all prophecies of extinction, happily endure in our seemingly post-national period.

The new model being proposed starts by re-examining the main questions a theory of nationalism is supposed to answer. Today the seemingly self-evident task of a theory of nationalism is to try to identify generic factors and mechanisms that would trigger nationalism in any given setting. If successful, this kind of theory would be able to give a definitive answer to questions such as: why did Estonia become a nation, but not Catalonia? Or, could nations exist prior to industrialisation? I believe that this sort of determinist approach promises much and delivers little, because, to name just one basic problem, it is unhistorical. There is no basis for the assumption that a single law of cause and effect produced nationalism in places as distant and different as England and East Timor.