The Mortality and Morality of Nations - Softcover

Abulof, Uriel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1107480868 ISBN 13: 9781107480865

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2017

Synopsis

Standing at the edge of life's abyss, we seek meaningful order. We commonly find this 'symbolic immortality' in religion, civilization, state and nation. What happens, however, when the nation itself appears mortal? The Mortality and Morality of Nation seeks to answer this question, theoretically and empirically. It argues that mortality makes morality, and right makes might; the nation's sense of a looming abyss informs its quest for a higher moral ground, which, if reached, can bolster its vitality. The book investigates nationalism's promise of moral immortality and its limitations via three case studies: French Canadians, Israeli Jews, and Afrikaners. All three have been insecure about the validity of their identity or the viability of their polity, or both. They have sought partial redress in existential self-legitimation: by the nation, of the nation and for the nation's very existence.

About this title

Book Description

The Mortality and Morality of Nation introduces political existentialism - a new school of thought - and demonstrates its merits in the study of ethnicity, nationalism and political legitimacy. Scholars and students of politics and political sociology, philosophy and psychology will gain groundbreaking insights into the role of mortality and morality in modern societies.

About the Author

Uriel Abulof is an Assistant Professor of Politics at Tel-Aviv University and a senior research fellow at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs/Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination (LISD). He is the author of Living on the Edge: The Existential Uncertainty of Zionism, which won the Bahat Prize, Israel's most prestigious academic book award. Abulof studies political legitimation, nationalism and ethnic conflicts. His articles have appeared in journals such as International Studies Quarterly, International Political Sociology, Nations and Nationalism, The British Journal of Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies and International Politics.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1107480868
• ISBN 13: 9781107480865
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 382