Imperial Alchemy

What is it about?

Analyses of nationalism have taken too little account of the different way in which 20th century nationalism affected Asia to the earlier experience of Europe and the Americas. Where nationalism broke up multi-ethnic empires into manageable nation-states in Europe, it served in Asia to legitimate imperial boundaries as those of a new type of multi-ethnic modern state. This book both provides a new typology of nationalism and uses it to assess four case studies in Indonesia and Malaysia.

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