The Wrath of Nations: Civilizations and the Furies of Nationalism

Book excerpt: In this "refreshing antidote to the swell of books about the end of modernity" (Ivan Sanders, Commonweal), William Pfaff writes an enthralling narrative of the fall of empires and the rise of nations-- and with them, of modern nationalism, the most important of all political forces as we enter the next century. Rooted in the human need for secure place, communal loyalty, and individual identification, nationalism has both created nations and ruined them. It paved the way for Nazism but eventually destroyed it. It brought down the European colonial empires, but has left Africa confronting anarchy, and much of Asia dominated by ambitious and authoritarian new nations. It forced Soviet armies out of Afghanistan and Eastern Europe, and eventually led to the downfall of Communism. Writing with both urgency and sobriety, William Pfaff shows that without understanding this ineradicable factor in our political life, we cannot reckon with the realities that may await us.