Nairn’s Nationalisms
In: Scotland in Theory
Author:
Ronald Turnbull
Ronald Turnbull
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Abstract
Tom Nairn has argued for nationalism both as a means to an end and, latterly, as an end in itself. But whether arguing for nationalism as a socialist instrument, or as an antidote to national “impotence”, Nairn, like Ernest Gellner, has never taken seriously the content of national ideas. The debates within nationalism, however, have a serious intellectual and philosophical content in themselves.