Ernest Gellner - Nations and Nationalism (1983)

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It is nationalism which engenders nations, and not the other way round.

Ernest Gellner

Tribalism never prospers, for when it does, everyone will respect it as a true nationalism, and no-one will dare call it tribalism.

Ernest Gellner

Obstruction of mobility, where it occurs, is one of the most serious and intractable problems of industrial society.

Ernest Gellner

In brief, nationalism is a theory of political legitimacy, which requires the ethnic boundaries should not be cut across political ones, and, in particular, that ethnic boundaries within a given state — a contingency already formally excluded by the principle in its general formulation — should not separate the power holders from the rest.

Ernest Gellner

Capital, like capitalism, seems an overrated category.

Ernest Gellner