Whence nationalism?

ABSTRACT. There is widespread agreement that nationalism emerged in the historical fountainheads of modernity, and was subsequently diffused outwards. Contrary to that, there is a long standing view that nationalism precedes modernity even in the broadly accepted cradles of both modernity and nationalism, such as England or France, neither of which was modern when it engendered nationalism. Besides, some emergent nationalisms ran concurrent with their English or French counterparts, with little evidence of having been spawned by diffusion. Such early or protonationalisms often sprang from resistance to foreign conquest, putting in doubt the invention‐diffusion hypothesis. I am therefore suggesting that nationalism has not emerged in few societies, but in many, and that it was engendered by social interactions, not by a particular social formation. While nationalism emerges within society, its genesis occurs in‐between social groups and societies, making it a product of their interactions. That makes it u‐topic, its cradles socially diverse, and its conception interactional, not gestational.