Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires

An examination of the critical dilemmas of nationalist politics in the First World War. It proposes that the war catapulted nationalist movements into positions of authority well before they were ready culturally or politically.

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Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires is a wide-ranging comparative study of the origins of today's ethnic politics in East Central Europe, the former Russian empire and the Middle East.

Centred on the First World War Era, Ethnic Nationalism highlights the roles of historical contingency and the ordeal of total war in shaping the states and institutions that supplanted the great multinational empires after 1918. It explores how the fixing of new political boundaries and the complex interplay of nationalist elites and popular forces set in motion bitter ethnic conflicts and political disputes, many of which are still with us today.

Topics discussed include:

* the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire
* the ethnic dimension of the Russian Revolution and Soviet state building
* Nationality issues in the late Ottoman empire
* the origins of Arab nationalism
* ethnic politics in zones of military occupation
* the construction of Czechoslovak and Yugoslav identities

Ethnic Nationalism is an invaluable survey of the origins of twentieth-century ethnic politics. It is essential reading for those interested in the politics of ethnicity and nationalism in modern European and Middle Eastern history.