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Nationalism and Nationalities in the New Europe

Edited by Charles Kupchan
Reviewed by By Francis Fukuyama
July/August 1995
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Edited by Charles Kupchan
Cornell University Press
1995
224 pp.
$37.50

While they do not break any new ground, the essays in this book are uniformly well-written and provide a clear and organized discussion of the problem of nationalism in Europe today and its implications for U.S. foreign policy. David Calleo provides a historical context for the modern European understanding of the nation-state in analyzing the thought of Herder and Bosanquet. Ezra Suleiman is on the mark in arguing that pushing for the deepening of the European Union envisioned in the Maastricht treaty may serve to stimulate a nationalist backlash rather than constraining nationalism, as its proponents suggest; broadening to the east is a higher priority. The authors come up with a laundry list of policy implications from economic assistance to educational programs to the suggestion that limited intervention in Bosnia might have been successful. One is left with the strong sense that ethnic conflict in Europe is a problem more effectively analyzed than dealt with by outside powers.

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