Description:
This essay will discuss the feelings and behaviour of presumably oppressed ethnic, national, and religious minorities. I will set aside definitions of ‘ethnic’ and ‘national’ for the moment, trusting that their meaning will become clear as the argument proceeds. The literature on this topic is, of course, enormous. I once pressed the button for ‘nationalism’ on Widener's new computer catalogue and got back the answer that there were some four thousand items on this topic in Widener's holdings. That response brought to mind a remark of Anton Chekhov, who was trained as a doctor. He said that if a disease has many cures, that is a sign that the disease is incurable. Perhaps we should transfer this little gem of wisdom to the social sciences and history. If there are many books about a problem, that is a sign that the problem is insoluble.