THE editors of this volume begin by throwing down a gauntlet. The resurgence of nationalism defies those who predicted the demise of the nation state in the new world order of the 1990s. Resistance to Maastricht and the emergence of new European states after 1989 are cited as proof of the tenacity of nationalism and its capacity to absorb new ideologies. If anything, the concept of the nation is, the editors argue, enjoying a fresh lease of life.
A bold and bracing manifesto, but one whose contemporary resonance is not actually sustained by the essays which follow. This is not surprising, given that the book is dealing - as its title says - with 18th century nationalism. In fact, the volume is a collection of twenty four papers from a joint conference of the 18th century societies of Ireland, Britain and France, held in UCD in 1992.
Once the reader acknowledges the historical specificity of the essays, there are gems aplenty.
Michel Vovelle's opening salvo, in French, on the tensions between nation, republic and patrie in the French Revolution, is a model of insight. His basic thesis is that French republicanism was compelled, from its inception, to negotiate a delicate balance between cosmopolitanism and xenophobia. The declaration of universal fraternity and peace was often set off against a campaign of military adventurism towards the Republic's neighbours: a campaign vitiated by ethnic stereotypes in part inherited from the ancien regime and the counter revolution.
Vovelle's suggestion that research is needed into popular and elite understandings of the concept of "foreigner" is taken up by several of the other contributors. An entire section is devoted to the category of "The Enlightened Traveller", with sharp pieces by Seamus Deane and Joseph McMinn on Swift's status as a colonial "stranger" stranded between England and Ireland; and a refreshingly international perspective by Patrick Jager on European travellers' attitudes to Arabs.
But the most original thesis on this dialectic of nationhood and foreigness is offered by Linda Colley in her splendid piece, "Britishness and Otherness". Colley contends that the various peoples that made up the British nation were brought together as a national identity by confrontation with "others". The forging of Great Britain was less a product of the union between England and Wales in the early 16th century than of the series of massive wars between 1689 and 1815 which allowed its diverse inhabitants to focus on what they had in common. The three main "others" who served as alternatives to the British natives were France, the overseas colonies and continental Catholicism. This powerful sense the British had of themselves as a Protestant sanctuary under siege is graphically illustrated in the famous photograph of London during the Blitz - St Paul's Cathedral emerging defiantly from the devastation surrounding it, "safe under the watchful eye of a strictly English speaking deity".
The current dissolution of British national identity - due to the absence of threatening "others" - is leading to a renewed sensitivity to internal regional differences (Scots, Welsh, Northern Irish), and to ex colonial immigrant minorities. Unless the British come to appreciate their own identity crisis they will, in Colley's words, scarcely be able adequately to understand themselves".
Colley's argument finds tangential support in a number of related essays by Thomas Bartlett, Brendan O Buachalla, Patrick Kelly and Kevin Whelan, who tease out the complex and shifting relations between Irish nationalism, Jacobitism, Protestantism and Catholicism.
This volume also has its unexpected pleasures. The essays by Desmond Clarke and Pierre Lurbe on John Toland - Ireland's most neglected philosopher - are greatly welcome. And for those who rightly believe that nationalism isn't just about wars and ideas but about stomachs as well, there is a fine piece by Beatrice Fink on gastonomy and the destiny of nations.
These debates bear witness to the emergence of a generation of new Irish historians in robust dialogue with their French and British counterparts.