Towards Modern Nationhood: Wales and Slovenia in Comparison, c. 1750-1918

(Paperback)

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A comparative history of nineteenth-century nationalist movements in Wales and Slovenia.

Towards Modern Nationhood is a comparative history of nineteenth-century national movements in two stateless countries, Wales and Slovenia. While these movements are often contrasted, Robin Okey reveals the shared strategies behind both western and eastern European nationalists. In both cases, activists organized around local identities that were legible to their occupiers. The Habsburg Empire respected multilingualism, so Slovenians mobilized behind their language. The British Empire respected religious pluralism, so the Welsh mobilized behind nonconformity. Ultimately, the stories of these two national movements make plain the surprising efficacy of soft power in the form of local traditions, languages, and religion.

Reviews

"An astonishing book that argues, despite much noise to the contrary, that Wales was, is and will be a nation. However, the way it became a nation differed from the continental European model, and by comparing Wales with Slovenia, Robin Okey shows that while nationalism is a singular noun it is indeed a plural experience."-- "Dr Simon Brooks, Swansea University"
"This is a brilliantly original analysis of the formation of the modern Welsh nation during the long nineteenth century. Okey presents this process in a sustained comparison with another small ethnic group, the Slovenes, and vindicates that choice by illumination of a series of similarities based on his intimate acquaintance with the history of that South Slav people. There are differences too - above all the Welsh national project, expressed through religious Nonconformity and political Liberalism as the willing associate of a hegemonic and officially monoglot Great Britain, contrasting with the Slovene equivalent which maneuvered within the troubled multilingual polity of the Habsburgs. Enhanced by Okey's jargon-free style, this book is equally revealing in its unusual perspective on the two incongruent empires, British and Austrian, within which his story unfolds." -- "Emeritus Regius Professor Robert Evans, University of Oxford"

Author Bio

Robin Okey is an emeritus professor of history at Warwick University.