Roger Michener

This book considers the phenomenon of nationalism in
contemporary liberal society. The essays presented here are a
self-contained piece of a much larger and more elaborate
academic project whose purpose is to show the principal
topographic features of liberal societies by assessing the main
achievements and shortcomings of these societies. The papers
commissioned particularly for this volume, one of eight in the
series conceived and edited by Edward Shils and myself, are
from that part of the project devoted to the study of national
solidarity and the interrelated concepts of nationality,
nationalism, and patriotism.

Professor Wolfgang J. Mommsen, one of the leading
scholars in the subject of nationalism, was the force behind the
treatment of nationalism that is presented here. The task of
assembling the volume fell to me because of duties Professor
Mommsen subsequently assumed as president of the German
Historical Association.

While the discussions that led to these chapters took place
only a short while after the brutality in Tiananmen Square and
just before definitive events in Eastern Europe, the fate of
socialism was not a point of reference in assaying the present

-vii-