Nation
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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- “Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian and it is all organised by the Swiss. Hell is where the police are German, the cooks are English, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, and it is all organised by the Italians”.
What is a Nation?
What is a Nation? (Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?) is a 1882 essay by French historian Ernst Renan (1823–1892) known for the statement that nations are based as much on what the people jointly forget, as what they remember. It is frequently quoted or anthologized in works of history or political science pertaining to nationalism.
See also
Nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, or history. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government (for example the inhabitants of a sovereign state) irrespective of their ethnic make-up; that is, a nation state. The word nation can more specifically refer to people of North American Indians. Nation carries varying meanings, and the connotation of the term has changed over time.
An ethnic community, or ethnie, shares a common myth of origins and descent, a common history, elements of distinctive culture, a common territorial association, and sense of group solidarity. A nation is much more impersonal, abstract, and overtly political than an ethnic group. It is a cultural-political community that has become conscious of its coherence, unity, and particular interests.
See also
- Citizenship
- Civilization
- Country
- Culture
- Ethnic group
- Government
- Identity (social science)
- Identity politics
- Imagined communities
- Indigenous peoples
- Intercultural competence
- Invented traditions
- Islam
- List of sovereign states
- List of states with limited recognition
- Lists of ethnic groups
- Lists of people by nationality
- Meta-ethnicity
- Multinational state
- Nation (university)
- National emblem
- Nationalism
- Nationality
- Nation state
- Polity
- Qaum
- Race (classification of humans)
- Separatism
- Society
- Sovereign state
- Territorial dispute
- Territory (country subdivision)
- Tribe
- United Nations