According to Rabindranath Tagore “There is only one history – the history of man. All national histories aremerely chapters in the larger one.”

The book Nationalism is a compilation of three lectures delivered by Rabindranath Tagore. The three lectures published in this book are: Nationalism in Japan, Nationalism in the West and Nationalism in India.
This book was written in 1917 about the Nation-State and how the East should adjust to modernization. It is a well thought out and balanced view of society that reads more like poetry than like political philosophy. The just of the book is that the East and America must evolve in a way that is not mechanical but moral and human. Though this book was written in 1917 it is surprisingly applicable to our current situation. I definitely suggest giving this a read.
Nationalism is a complex concept to understand. Anderson defines the nation as an “imagined community,” born with the demise of feudalism and the rise of capitalism. For postcolonial critics this definition, however, is not unproblematic since while referring to constructions of nation2 and nationalism with regard to third world countries Anderson underlines their dependency on the European models with the contention that the American and European experiences “were now everywhere modularly imagined.”3 Following Anderson, it is widely believed that “Nationalism is a doctrine invented in Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century” aNationalism is not a sporadic sentiment that suddenly appears, but gradually evolves when a nation’s survival becomes threatened by an external power and thus, in an overreaction, harks back to its heritage through a variety of means. Thus Lawson suggests “Nationalism is a reaction of peoples who feel culturally at a disadvantage” .Indeed, in a colonial context, the definition of political identities fitting neatly over cultural