Really Existing Nationalisms: A Post-Communist View from Marx and Engels - Tapa dura

A brave, avowedly revisionist appraisal of what Marx and Engels themselves had to say in this field. The study is carefully contextualized, both in relation to intellectual influences and in relation to the turbulent political and economic developments of the middle decades of the nineteenth century ... Benner's background in political philosophy is apparent in her deft summaries of the Hegelian legacy. (Times Literary Supplement)

valuable as a contribution to the study of political philosophy or of international relations ... historians might also benefit from her careful dissection of Marx's and Engels' concepts and from her efforts in extricating their thought from some of the stereotypes into which it has been forced, as much by those claiming to inherit their mantle as by their detractors ... it is a welcome revisionist contribution to the literature (Ian Cummins, Monash University, Melbourne, Nations & Nationalism, Vol 2 Part 3 - 1996)

... formidable and academically vigorous book in which, literally, no page of Marx's and Engel's voluminous literary legacies remain unturned ... it should not be judged by its contribution to the knowledge and understanding of the problems of contemporary nations and nationalism but as another addition to the scholarly literature inquiring into the works of Marx and Engels and dealing with the various (mis)interpretations of their ideas. (Aleksandras Shtromas, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics Vol.3 No.1)

This is an impressive re-examination of the theories of Marx and Engels on nationalism. The author challenges the conventional view that Marx and Engels lacked the theoretical resources needed to understand nationalism. It argues that the two men had a much better explanatory grasp of national phenomena than is usually supposed, and that the reasoning behind their policy towards specific national movements was often subtle and sensitive to the ethical issues at stake.
Instead of offering an insular `Marxian' account of nationalism, the book identifies arguments in Marx and Engels' writings that can help us to think more clearly about national identity and conflict today. These arguments are located in a distinctive theory of politics, which enabled the authors to analyse the relations between nationalism and other social movements and to discriminate between democratic, outward-looking national programmes and authoritarian, ethnocentric nationalism. The book suggest that this approach improves on accounts which stress the `independent' force of nationality over other concerns, and on thos that fail to analyse the complex motives of nationalist actors. It concludes by criticizing these `methodological nationalist' assumptions and `post-nationalist' views about the future role of nationalism, showing how some of marx and Engles' arguments can yield a better understanding of the national movements that have emerged in the wake of `really existing socialism'.