Myths of Election

We have long been accustomed to think of nationalism as a secular creed, opposed to earlier religious faiths. Our image of nationalism is shaped by the French Revolution, that first great eruption of patriotic forces that reverberated throughout Europe and then the world. Recently, however, the Islamic revival, the reign of the ayatollahs, and ethnic conflicts in Ireland, Poland, Armenia, the Punjab, and Sri Lanka, among others, have forced us to revise our ideas about the relationship of nat...