The Dimensions of Nationalism: A Case Study of the U.S. in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

This article seeks a new understanding of nationalism theory by comparing the historical evolution of American and Chinese nationalism, analyzing the cosmopolitan origins of the two nations in different historical contexts. Although modern American and Chinese nation were born in different time and space, their nationalism has a similarly ideological origin which can be traced back to universal ideal based on regionally cultural community. Different with American nationalism that cut off the cosmopolitan traditions of Atlantic Republic of Letters, using localism of evangelical ideology as a national binder, modern Chinese nationalism was born in the collapse of traditional Tian-xia state, under the pressure from European nation-states theory based on national model from Atlantic world in the late of nineteenth century.