Resumen de Nations Before Nationalism?: Myth and symbolism in John Armstrong's perspective
John Armstrong's major work, Nations Before Nationalism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press) appeared in 1982, one of the earliest of a line of seminal theoretical works of the 1980s in the field of nationalism studies. Armstrong turned his attention to the preconditions of modern nations, after completing studies of nationalism in Eastern Europe and the role of European administrative elites. The result was a monumental, path-breaking volume that outlines his main theoretical contribution, along with an astonishing wealth of empirical data and historical examples drawn mainly from medieval Islam and Eastern and Western Christendom. Here I concentrate on the theoretical framework, adducing Armstrong's historical examples where they are pertinent.
