Pan-Nationalism as a Category in Theory and Practice by Alexander Maxwell

Pan-Nationalism as a Category in Theory and Practice by Alexander Maxwell

How is pan-nationalism different from other forms of nationalism? This book explores the diversity of pan-nationalism in both theory and practice.

Drawing on Rogers Brubaker, the book introduces "pan-nationalism" as a category of practice. It shows that pan-nationalism implied transcending political frontiers, intermittently possessed a pejorative subtext, and differed from unmodified “nationalism” partly due to a retroactively applied success/failure criterion. Pan-nationalists always look across political frontiers, but do not always want a single pan-national state. The book explores the diversity of pan-nationalism through case studies and a selection of pan-national movements such as: Habsburg pan-Slavism from both the Slavic and Hungarian perspective, pan-Saxonism in Europe and North America, pan-Ethiopianism and pan-Somalism in the horn of Africa, and pan-Hinduism online.

The book will be of interest to students and researchers of politics including comparative politics, various forms of nationalism and history. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Nationalism and Ethnic Politics.

Alexander Maxwell is Associate Professor of History at Victoria University of Wellington. He is the author of Choosing Slovakia: Slavic Hungary, the Czechoslovak Language and Accidental Nationalism (2009), Patriots Against Fashion: Clothing and Nationalism in Europe's Age of Revolutions (2014) and Everyday Nationalism in Hungary: 1789-1867 (2019). He has published widely on Central European history, nationalism theory, and history pedagogy.