RSA - On Nations and Nationhood

On Nations and Nationhood

10th Feb 2011; 13:00

(full recording including audience Q&A)
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Watch the video (edited highlights)

RSA Thursday

What is a nation? Is it a group of strangers with a shared history, government, language, or ethnography? Are there inseparable cultural ties between inhabitants, or only shared political aims? Are there objective national histories or simply myths of creation?

The best-selling writer and academic Shlomo Sand asks what constitutes the national identity of a body of people, and interrogates the foundations of nationhood, arguing that a nation is not based upon race, religion, or language.

The author of the controversial 'The Invention of the Jewish People', Sand explains how the idea of the ‘invention’ of nationhood has played out in the national projects of Israel and Palestine.

Chair: Rosemary Hollis, Professor of Middle East Policy Studies and Director of the Olive Tree Programme at City University London

Suggested hashtag for Twitter users: #rsanation