Introduction to studies on nationalism; Ernest Renan: nationalism as a product of ‘forgetfulness’, nationalism as a spiritual principle; Ernest Gellner: sociological necessity of nationalism in modern times, from agro-literate to industrial society, from low to high cultures; Eric Hobsbawm: nationalism as invented traditions, democratic political nationalism and ethno-linguistic nationalism, nationalism from above and nationalism from below; Benedict Anderson: nation as an ‘imagined community’, fatalities of death and babel, print capitalism and linguistic diversity; Anthony D. Smith: nationalism and its ethnic origins, intelligentsia as mediators between an ethnic past and a nationalist present; Making sense of nations and nationalisms in South Asia: loss and recovery of self under colonialism, nationalist thought and colonial reason, historical antecedents of nationalism in South Asia.
