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Some scholars of nationalism support the existence of nationalism in antiquity. This school of thought differs from modernism, the predominant school of thought on nationalism, which suggests that nationalism developed largely after the late 18th century and the French Revolution. Theories on the existence of nationalism in antiquity may belong to the primordialist (or perennialist) paradigm.

Judeo-Christian roots

For many non-modernists, nations have emerged from the Judeo-Christian tradition. John Alexander Armstrong was one of the first modern scholars to argue that nations have pre-modern roots and that their formation was helped by religious institutions locally. However, Armstrong acknowledges "persistent group identity did not ordinarily constitute the overriding legitimisation of polity formation", unlike contemporary nationalism, which presupposes the "right of individuals to establish territorial political structures corresponding to their consciousness of group identity".

Tom Garvin wrote that "something strangely like modern nationalism is documented for many peoples in medieval times and in classical times as well," citing the ancient Jews, the classical Greeks and the Gaulish and British Celts as examples. The Great Jewish Revolt against Roman rule (66–73 CE) is often cited by scholars as a prominent example of ancient Jewish nationalism. Adrian Hastings argued that Jews are the "true proto-nation", that through the model of ancient Israel found in the Hebrew Bible, provided the world with the original concept of nationhood which later influenced Christian nations. Anthony D. Smith wrote that the Jews of the late Second Temple period provide "a closer approximation to the ideal type of the nation than perhaps anywhere else in the ancient world", adding that this observation "must make us wary of pronouncing too readily against the possibility of the nation, and even a form of religious nationalism, before the onset of modernity".

Azar Gat claims a Jewish nation has existed since antiquity and that the creation of imagined communities was made possible not only by secularisation and the rise of print capitalism in modern era, but could also be produced earlier by the spoken word and via religious rituals. Gat does not agree with the modernist view that pre-modern multi-ethnic empires were ruled by an elite indifferent to the ethnic composition of its subjects. In fact, almost all of the empires were based on a dominant ethnic core, while most ethnic communities were too small and weak to have their own independent state.

Criticisms

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See also

• Nationalism
  
• Nationalism in the Middle Ages
  
• Nation
  
• National identity
  
• Nation building
  
• Nation state
  

References

1. Smith, Anthony D. (2007). Nationalism (2nd ed.). Cambridge: polity. ISBN 978-0-7456-5128-6.
2. Schwyzer, Philip (2016-06-02). "Nationalism in the Renaissance". Oxford Handbooks Online. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935338.013.70. ISBN 978-0-19-993533-8. Retrieved 2020-06-12.
3. Armstrong, John Alexander (1982). Nations Before Nationalism. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. p. 4.
4. Tom Garvin, “Ethnic Markers, Modern Nationalisms, and the Nightmare of History,” in Kruger, ed., ¨ Ethnicity and Nationalism, p. 67.
5. Goodblatt, David, ed. (2006), "Theoretical Considerations: Nationalism and Ethnicity in Antiquity", Elements of Ancient Jewish Nationalism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 3, 11–13, doi:10.1017/cbo9780511499067.002, ISBN 978-0-521-86202-8, retrieved 2024-06-14
6. Hastings, Adrian (1997). The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 186–187. ISBN 0-521-59391-3.
7. Smith, Anthony D. (1993). National Identity. Ethnonationalism in comparative perspective (Reprint ed.). Reno Las Vegas: University of Nevada Press. pp. 48–50. ISBN 978-0-87417-204-1.
8. Storm, Eric (2018). "A New Dawn in Nationalism Studies? Some Fresh Incentives to Overcome Historiographical Nationalism". European History Quarterly. 48 (1): 113–129. doi:10.1177/0265691417741830. ISSN 0265-6914. PMC 6195252. PMID 30443098.
9. Gat, Azar; Yakobson, Alexander (2013). Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-00785-7.

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