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Define a Nation

It could be argued that in Ireland Catholics and Protestants are united by the nation of Christianity but this has not led to solidarity, just bloodshed. Therefore Webbers definition is very vague and has many flaws but does give us a further understanding of the definition of "nation" .
             In contrast Eric Hobsbawm argues that neither objective nor subjective definitions are thus satisfactory and both can be misleading. This can be seen in his book "Nations and Nationalism since 1870" as Hobsbawm gives no definition of what constitutes a nation. This would seem to definitely give weight to the argument that it may not be possible to define a nation or at least give a credible or substantial definition to which would be accepted. As I stated in my introduction, an initial working assumption is that any sufficiently large body of people whose members regard themselves as part of a "nation" will be treated as such. Critics argue however that whether such a body of people does so regard itself, it cannot be established simply by consulting writers or political spokesmen of organisations claiming the status of nation for it. Nationalism and nation can be confused as the word nation is today used so widely and imprecisely. The approach of Hobsbawm's book "Nations and Nationalism" is that it pays particular attention to the changes and transformations of the concept, particular towards the end of the 19th century.
             From reading Hobsbawm book he seems to be unsure of his position on whether it is or is not possible to define a nation as he argues that definitions are not satisfactory but also gives the reader loose definitions of "nation". Hobsbawm does not regard the nation as a primary nor as an unchanging social entity. It belongs exclusively to a particular and historically recent period. It is a social entity only insofar as both relate to it. He continues that nations exist not as functions of a particular kind of territorial state or the aspiration to establish one-broadly speaking the citizen state of the French revolution but also in the context of a particular stage of technological and economic development.


Essays Related to Define a Nation

1. Globalization, nation, community, identity

... his book, "Imagined communities," goes on to try to define the impossible by describing nation as an "imagined political community - and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign (Anderson 1991: 6)." The relationship between state and nation is important, a state is "generally recognized by other countries as possessing legal sovereignty over what happens in its territory, being responsible for the ... them, encompassing perhaps a billion living human beings, has finite, if elastic, boundaries, beyond which lie other nations Nationalists unlike Christians do not dream of the day...

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2. Chicago and the Citizens Who Define It

... itself does not do the work; the people do. Sandburg's use of verbs helps to explain that the people, the individuals who do what is done in Chicago, define what kind of place it is. Because these people are "shoveling" (85, 22), readers know that Chicago is a place where hard work is done. ... poem. The way Sandburg best describes the city of Chicago is by explaining what the Chicagoans do there, further proving that the good and bad of the people define the city. Because the first five lines of the poem are structured as a list of Chicagoan occupations like "Hog Butcher of the World, T...

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3. The Paradigm of Laker Nation

... the history of said paradigm to fully comprehend why the pattern was initially created and still persists. Laker fans have dubbed themselves "Laker Nation" and it's all encompassing; whether you were born in Los Angeles or you're a "bandwagon fan" from Minnesota. Being that ... Lakers are one of the most successful franchises in the history of the NBA, people tend to view Laker Nation through a microscope with squinted eyes. The traditional perceptions of the paradigm from outsiders consist of entitlements, bandwagoners and flamboyance instead of love ... passionate fanbase throughout t...

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4. Health of a Nation

... democracies, often skewing the literal meaning behind the word, "rule by the many," by the people. In the United States of America, we define democracy as a government in which the people hold the supreme power through elections, the right to speak out, demonstrate, petition, or run for ... we cannot efficiently uphold the rights and regulations of the Constitution without elected officials to organize and delegate power within such a large nation. However, the power struggles between the political parties do not negate the fact that each still holds to ensure the values of the ... the l...

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5. An Analysis of the Gettysburg Address

With the first lines of his speech drawing an allegorical reference to Biblical timeframes, President Lincoln looks to define that it is divine destiny for the Untied States to move through the tumultuous, painful period that the thousands of dead soldiers, both ... gave the speech on November 19, 1863 to approximately fifteen to twenty thousand who had gathered to hear his convocation of the cemetery. Lincoln realized that the nation must seek a transformation, away from the divisiveness and towards unity, and he freely calls on a Biblically-based use of time-based terms to connote that it ...

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6. Our Nation And Poverty

... deprivation is inevitable. In Townsend's study of poverty in Britain in 1960s he calculated that in order to avoid relative poverty a certain income level was needed. It is possible to define income levels that are sufficient to enable people to live in varying degrees of discomfort and to indicate a level of income that permits social participation's (Townsend 1979 in Ackers & Abbott ... Ackers & Abbott (1996) Material explanations enforce the idea that those with poor health cant afford to have a healthy diet, live in poor housing with poor working conditions etc. Our Healthier Nation...

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7. Nation Building in Peru

Nation Building in Peru Nazanin Panahi From 1879 to 1883, a war between Peru and Chile engaged in war for the control of nitrate deposits in southern Peru. This war nonetheless helped define the role of lower class Peruvians in national construction. Bonilla believes in the failure of national integration with the peasants. It is important to first study Peru's situation before the ... and citizens, or debating the form of their reintegration into the postwar sociopolitical order, the village and townspeople of the central highlands helped forged new perspectives of the meaning of nation."" ...

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8. Back To Anarchy

... new and changing force in international politics. Furthermore, neither the old nor the allegedly new forms of terrorism violate any of the aforementioned three principles regarding the structure of the nation-state system. Neither has caused the compromise of the line between international and domestic policy. Instead of undermining individual or social identity within a state, terrorist organizations often have the ... the internalization of various states of international human rights norms, scholars have developed a sort of theory called the spiral model. A five-phase process, the spi...

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9. Nationalism in germany and italy in 1848

... today like Chechnya. Before explaining why Germany and Italy could claim to be a nation, the concept surrounding it must be defined. Historians are constantly assessing what is the correct term to use to define a nation, because unlike traditional concepts like freedom and democracy, the concept of a nation is relatively modern and thus does not have classical core texts which historians can study ... dynastic principles. However, historians seem to differ on how much of these common characteristics are needed to form a nation. For example, using ethnicity as a means to define a nation i...

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