This volume represents the efforts of a group of social scientists from the rational choice school to explain nationalism. The editors admit that the book's essays do not fully crack this particular nut, but they express the hope that rational choice will one day be able to explain even this most irrational of phenomena. While the essays demonstrate that there are rational elements to nationalist movements, the book does not adequately come to terms with the question of whether struggles over ends related to rights and identity can be comprehended by an essentially economic methodology.
