Nationalism in the New World

Abstract

One need only glance at the headlines to see that nationalism remains an important and often misunderstood form of solidarity on the world stage. Driven in part by international events, scholars have taken another look at the elusive notion of nationalism, but the same debates persist: When does nationalism begin and where does it end? To what extent are nations formed by states? Is it a useful category for analysis? These questions have produced a considerable amount of scholarship in recent years and are among those considered in Nationalism in the New World. To date, studies involving nationalism have been dominated by examples from Europe, Asia, and Africa, which often produces interpretations of limited value for those interested in other regions. This volume redirects the conversation away from the usual examples to others drawn from the western hemisphere.In their introductory essay, the editors emphasize that nationalism in the Americas is important to understand on its own terms. The “new” nations, they argue, possess their own logic and transcend any commonalities they may share with the Old World (p. 9). The contributing authors corroborate this point with regional and methodological examples that depict the American nations as innovative in their ability to absorb multiple categories of social difference into mutable, civic-nationalist models. Although social divisions remain, relative to other national projects, these disputes are rarely fueled by ethnic violence and exclusionary nationalist policies (p. 2). In this regard, Doyle and Pamplona conclude that “the experience of the American Hemisphere can illuminate the current understanding of nationalism around the world” (p. 10).The opening essay by Craig Calhoun, “Nationalism Matters,” the most theoretical in the volume, argues that the study of nationalism as a discursive genre has been theoretically dependent on European political projects, interpretations, and “misrecognitions” (p. 18). Thus many of the contradictions and misunderstandings associated with the genre are attributable to its Eurocentric legacy, which, among other things, underestimates its transformative potential. According to Calhoun, national identities are notoriously mutable, and it is precisely this elastic quality that the American examples illuminate so well. Calhoun’s essay alone makes this book a worthy purchase.The remaining chapters serve as case studies. While two of them are direct comparisons between nations, most of the chapters deal with discrete topics within specific countries, including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and the United States. The authors explore the myriad of national possibilities available to the New World communities and capture popular as well as state-sponsored expressions of nation. The United States receives a lopsided amount of attention, but some of those chapters are among the more illuminating and useful for their comparative potential. The essays by Phillip Buckner (Canada), Jorge Myers (Argentina), and Jeane DeLany (Argentina) focus on immigration and its role in shaping national identities, exclusionary or otherwise. Also of interest to Latin Americanists are the essays by Eric Van Young (Mexico) and Heather Thiessen-Reily (Bolivia), both of whom engage the genre with an ideological vitality that directly challenges outdated modes of analysis such as Benedict Anderson’s concept of “print capitalism.” The nonliterate majority in these nations drew from a variety of primary experiences in creating political boundaries that fostered resistance against Spain during Mexican independence and provided support for the populist-caudillo politics of Manuel Isidoro Belzú in Bolivia.This book will be particularly useful for anyone teaching upper-level undergraduate or graduate courses on nationalism or topics related to political culture. There is enough material on Latin America to merit consideration for Latin American history courses as well. The authors are correct in asserting that the inclusion of the Americas benefits the general understanding of nationalism, but they may be overstating the idea that New World national projects were relatively free of the violence and exclusionary forms of nationalism found in the Old World. With few exceptions, national projects in the Americas operated in direct opposition to the interests of indigenous communities, which were rarely allowed to influence these projects. The legacy of protracted Indian wars includes episodes of ethnic cleansings and repression that match Old World standards, certainly in their intensity if not in the sheer number of victims involved.But this does not diminish the overall value of the book. It stands as an important contribution to our understanding of the western hemisphere and reinforces the idea that it is difficult to understand the ethnic, racial, gendered, and regional histories of the New World nations without the inclusion of nationalism as a viable social category. It is a timely discussion that adds perspective and clarity to a topic which is not likely to disappear anytime soon.