It's Nation Time

Speaking at the Congress of African People in September 1970, Amiri Barak said "In Newark, when we greet each other on the streets, we say, 'what time is it?' We always say 'It's nation time!' Nationalism is about land and nation, a way of life trying to free itself." National identity and nationhood are easily too often dismissed as retrograde populism or racist exclusion. Instead, they need to be understood as a key part of a vision of globalisation that holds the imperatives of diversity and solidarity in a delicate balance. Jerry White offers a defense of the nation based on the assumption that struggles for national identity have often unfolded in ways that should be familiar to those who defend the political standpoint of the progressive left. Having evolved into something that a wide variety of actors have sought to defend, nations can also serve as a defense against the homogenizing forces of globalisation and as havens of diversity in opposition to more singularly-minded forms of affiliation. It's Nation Time is structured as a series of specific case-studies that speak to theories of nation and their historical and cultural manifestations. It includes examples as varied as Black nationalism, Simone Weil's hopes for a postwar France, the first independence period of Georgia, the Bollywood cinema of Nehru-era India, New Zealand, Quebec, Ireland, Catalonia, and the Métis, the Mohawk, and Inuit, to argue that nationalism is a social form that has much potential and life in it. Broadly internationalist but also deeply insightful about particular the cultures and politics of small nations, It's Nation Time defends an idea of nation, and a form of nationalism, that is rooted in the potential for diversity, flexibility, and progressive politics.