Combining historical perspective and theoretical analysis, this book provides an overview of modern nationalism. The text explores the recent developments in eastern and central Europe that have given the subject of nationalism a new significance. The author also addresses many of the debates that have arisen in current historiography and re-evaluates his own position. The book considers nationalism as a form of politics which arises in opposition to the modern state. In this light it is revealed as an appropriate way of advancing the interests of elites, social groups and other governments against a modern state. The author asserts that rather than emerging from a cultural sense of national identity, nationalism creates a sense of identity. He supports his argument with a broad-ranging analysis of a variety of examples - national opposition in early modern Europe; the unification movement in Germany, Italy and Poland; separatism under the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires; fascism in Germany, Italy and Romania; post-war anti-colonialism and the nationalist resurgence following the breakdown of Soviet power.