Return to the organic: Onions, artichokes and 'the debate' on the nation and modernity

Abstract

There exist in intellectual history periods where, following intense deliberation on a question, something like a consensus emerges. Typically the consensus amounts to a refinement of the competing views on the question rather than some final resolution. These refined views are then presented as the official ‘debate’ on the question, and faithfully reproduced in university courses world-wide. Something of this sort has happened with theories of nationalism, or to be more accurate, with theories of the modernity of the nation. Indeed, the issue of the modernity of the nation looms large in the Smith, Özkrimili and Guibernau & Hutchinson texts.