Nationalism and patriotism are two of the most powerful forces shaping world history. Maurizio Viroli's wide-ranging study shows exactly why patriotism is a political virtue and nationalism a political vice.
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Summary
Nationalism and patriotism are two of the most powerful forces shaping world history. Maurizio Viroli's wide-ranging study shows exactly why patriotism is a political virtue and nationalism a political vice.
Description
Nationalism and patriotism are two of the most powerful forces shaping world history. Though seen by many as two sides of the same coin, they have developed widely different connotations. Nationalism is increasingly seen as destructive, and at the root of the world's bloodiest conflicts; patriotism seems something more benign, a political virtue. How are we to mark the distinction between these two phenomena? How can we rescue patriotismfrom the tainted grasp of nationalism? Reconstructing the historical the meaning of the terms, Maurizio Viroli shows how the two concepts have been used within specific cultural and ideological contexts.He reviews the political though of Italy, England, and Germany and shows how patriotism and nationalism have fundamentally different roots. Professor Viroli concludes that it is morally unacceptable, and indeed unnecessary, to be a nationalist to defend the values that nationalists hold dear. Patriotism, however, is a valuable source of civic responsibility.
Critic Reviews
“'We are all in debt to Viroli for his sympathetic and acute dissection of the patriot tradition, and his thought-provoking reflections on our political shortcomings.'Times Higher Education Supplement”
The civic patriotism tradition is of particular relevance in the present world of divisive provincialisms. Professor Viroli develops the history of this tradition and demonstrates its power as a corrective to such provincialisms with great force and circumstantiality. His recovery and reassertion of this long existing, but now obscured, conception of how loyalty, tradition, love of country, and political belonging ought properly to be understood is ofimmense value.'Professor Clifford Geertz, Princeton, New Jersey, USAWe are all in debt to Viroli for his sympathetic and acute dissection of the patriot tradition, and his thought-provoking reflections on our political shortcomings.'Times Higher Education SupplementThis book is a learned political sermon ... This study is conducted in an erudite manner ... The great richness of material convincingly establishes that there was a passionate rhetoric of patriotism of the kind Viroli commends.'John Breuilly, University of Birmingham, Nations and Natioalism, Vol. 3, Part 1 - 1997The students of patriotic emotions and arguments will find in Viroli's book many quotations and discussions of well known and lesser known thinkers on the topic ...'Jean Tournon, Nationalism and Ethic Politics vol.3 no.1,1997
About the Author
Maurizio Viroli is Professor in the Department of Politics at Princeton University. He is the author of From Politics to Reason of State and Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the "Well-Ordered Society".
Nationalism and patriotism are two of the most powerful forces shaping world history. Though seen by many as two sides of the same coin, they have developed widely different connotations. Nationalism is increasingly seen as destructive, and at the root of the world's bloodiest conflicts; patriotism seems something more benign, a political virtue. How are we to mark the distinction between these two phenomena? How can we rescue patriotism from the tainted grasp of nationalism? Reconstructing the historical the meaning of the terms, Maurizio Viroli shows how the two concepts have been used within specific cultural and ideological contexts. He reviews the political though of Italy, England, and Germany and shows how patriotism and nationalism have fundamentally different roots. Professor Viroli concludes that it is morally unacceptable, and indeed unnecessary, to be a nationalist to defend the values that nationalists hold dear. Patriotism, however, is a valuable source of civic responsibility.
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