Nation-Building and Identity in Europe: The Dialogics of Reciprocity

Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of nationalist movements and conflicts, both in Europe and beyond. The persistence of national identity as a central feature of cultural and political life invites us to reflect anew upon the dynamics through which nationhood is constituted. This book offers a provocative theorisation of nation formation, focusing on the key role played by dialogic relations of hegemony, resistance and reciprocity in the emergence of the modern nation. The workings of this dialogic relation between the emergent nation and its 'Others' is explored through the encounter between Greece and Britain in the latter part of the nineteenth century - one of the most notable instances of nation-formation played out within the heart of a 'modern' Europe, that traced its origins in an imagined Hellenic civilisation.