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Of Nationalisms
On Nationalism by Eric Hobsbawm and edited by Donald Sassoon with an introduction, London: Little, Brown, 2021; pp xxvi + 364, `799.
It is almost a decade since the death of celebrated historian Eric Hobsbawm at the age of 95 years in October 2012. The volume under review is a good way of reminding ourselves about the many things that Hobsbawm had to say about a phenomenon as pervasive and perverse as nationalism, which he himself clearly did not like. This is a point that Donald Sassoon helpfully makes at the very beginning of this book in his introduction.
Hobsbawm the historian helps us understand that in the larger sweep of history, nationalism will appear as a not so insignificant blip. Yet, like all blips it will pass. As Hobsbawm wrote at the very end of his book Nations and Nationalism since 1780:
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