Anthony W. Marx
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Average rating: 4.5 of 5
A difficult read but worth the effort 5 out of 5 stars.
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Anthony Marx, who was recently appointed president of Amherst College, exposes the clay feet of Western nationalism in his 2003 work, FAITH IN NATION. In this ground breaking work of revisionist political history and anyalysis, Marx rejects the tradionally held asumptions regarding the originis of Western nationalism. Marx goes about systemically challenging traditional scholarship that places the roots on nationalism 18th and 19th century political engagement, allegiance to the secular power of emerging states, liberalism, torelation and inclusiveness. According to Marx, nationalism was not a product of the Enlightenment. Its birth did not coincide with the rights and toleration of England's constituional monarchy and it was not epitomized by the motto of the French Revolution, "liberty, equality and fraternity."Through the use of a comparative study of the three great Atlantic seaboard powers of early modern Western Europe, Spain, France and England, Marx shows that the origins of nationalism are in fact sinister, illiberal rather than liberal. Going back two centuries earlier than traditional thought and relying on original sources and the analysis of current day scholars, he revelas the dirty little secret that Western nationalism evolved through a process of exclusion rather than inclusion and form internal discord over religion, usually in the form of religious fanaticism. He shows the church as a tool to facilitate the exclusion of Jews in Spain, the oppression of religious sects in England and France, and sometimes murder so that like minded people could feel a sense of commonality outside the local community and for an allegiance to a central government. Although each of the countries under consideration have different histories, which Marx recounts for the reader, he shows similarities amoung them in terms of structural logic.
Essention to the process of nation buidling is the transfer of power from local to central rulers. While arguing that the most effective way of transferring that power was religion and fanatical passions, Marx also shows that in most cases this process was not the result of spontaneous social forces but effectuated by policies initiated by powerful fources at the center of the society that ultimately controlled the periphery. Absolutist rulers of the early modern European states all shared a desire to build coherence and loyalty of their subjects in order to bolster their own authority. However, the more the populace below became engaged, the more control from above was lost. He demonstrates a shifting of social controls from the center to the periphery and occasions when the centter totally lost control, suas as the Saint Bartholomew's massacre.
At first glance, FAITH IN NATION is a difficult and complex work. However, once the reader comprehends the basic thesis of the book, he is thrown into a challenging and fascinating discussion of the roots of contemporary world politics which culminates in the final chapter in the discussion of St. Bartholomew as the possible patron saint of nationalism. The conlusion is grim but insightful. Marx subtletly raises imponderable questions regarding the origins of the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing in Albania and tribal wars in Ruaunda and even race relations in the US. In this post 9/11 work, where Americans ponder the question of why parts of the world hate us and what would drive others to seek the destruction of our way of life, Marx raises fascinating questions for discussion and debate. His scholarshp challenges traditional thinking on nationalism but it goes further than that. It challenges the Western reader to reconsider their heritage and perspective on the world in which we live and question the theological backgrounds of our world.
Editorial Review:
In a startling departure from the unquestioning liberal consensus that has governed discussions of nationalism for the past quarter century, Marx exposes the hidden underside of Western nationalism. Arguing that the true history of the nation began two hundred years earlier, in the early modern era, he shows how state builders set about deliberately constructing a sense of national solidarity to support their burgeoning authority. Key to this process was the transfer of power from local to central rulers; the most suitable vehicle for effecting this transfer was religion. Religious intolerance, specifically the exclusion of religious minorities from the nascent state, provided the glue that bound together the remaining populations. Exposing the West's idealization of its exclusionary past, Marx forcefully undermines the distinction between a Western nationalism that is civic and tolerant by definition and an oriental nationalism founded on ethnicity and intolerance.
