Inventing the Nation (Essay Sample)

Inventing the Nation
Name
Professor
Course
Institution
Date
Book Review for Inventing the Nation: Italy (2001) by Nicholas Doumanis
In the book, Italy had remained disintegrated for over 130 years and due to this, it developed a weaker sense of patriotism. The modern Italy is far much different from the Italy that was before the twentieth century. Nicholas Doumanis work asserts that Italy is a nation of a particular kind and has a plethora of historical information and cultural development and knowledge. He argues that the happenings of state formation were more pivotal in the founding of Italy than nationalism. Further, he asserts that the failure to come to a national consensus was cultivated by the fact that they refused to put together the local cultures into one national culture. A nation was developed from within a society through mass consumerism, migration movements, the public sphere and mass communication.
Nation building is a concept that differs from country to country because the provisions in the particular countries are different. The developing conceptualization of the idea is that unstable economies should be given assistance so that they become more stable and to become politically relevant. Nation building concept means that someone is engaging in building their nation intentionally. In such economies, people are free to do what they want because free labor is more productive than forced labor. Italian nationalism or nation building shows that the people of Italy live as a nation and embrace a nationhood spirit in addition to upholding the Italian culture.
It puts it that the nation has an ethnic people who uphold their culture and linguistics. The people of Italy are the descendants of the ancient Romans of the Italian peninsula. Italian nationalism first came up as a political force in the 1860s spearheaded by Giuseppe Mazzini. When the fascist Benito Mussolini seized power, there developed a totalitarian state that appealed to nationalism. After the fall of fascism, politicians, scholars and the masses had reduced their interests in Italian nationalism. The author provides challenging insights to nation building. Taking a transnational approach, he asserts that the development of a society is attributed to their chemistry and the involvement of the administrative forces. The author looks at the evolution theories of nation development. He believes that nation building is a social process that takes a long time and can only be spearheaded from within. In that sense, he says that a country’s nation-building can only be realized by the efforts of its citizens. Doumanis weaves the narrative into what brings forth a synthesis of the recent milestones in the literature on the modern Italy.
The level of historical knowledge does not prevent Doumanis from delivering the truth and the main line of argument. The availability of the knowledge enables him to put across the path and the circumstances that a nation undergoes to make nation-building and national integration a reality. The author also directs the source of development of the nation-states to centralization. He banks on the different economic, political, societal and cultural factors. The development of the Italian nation, Zollverein customs union, the France nation states and the development of China from the warring state took a long time.
The developments were not only as a result of political leadership but also advancements in technology and agriculture. The industrial revolution played part in the formation of the countries to what they are today. The socioeconomic, political and cultural factors worked in opposition to one another in the realization of the modern nations in the 19th and the 20th century. The book gives clear and critical accounts of the Italy’s predicaments. He further claims that the northern and southern spheres appear in cultural, social and economic dimensions to be different. Italy is awash with regional stereotyping which can be compared to the extent of England although in Italy the North is regarded as prosperous. On the negative side, he asserts that nation building by one state can harm other states because the other states will be more superior. On Italian nation development, Nicholas puts it that the people of Italy developed nationalism from the integration of the smaller cultures and the regions that sidelined themselves from the larger nation. He gives a brief history of Italy and how the spirit of nationhood developed. Most of what the writer has put across is picked from artifacts that are got from the burial sites. The author understands that the Italian state developed from feudalism. Feudalism denotes a society that their system originated from Western and Central Europe. In other political society, it is characterized by serfdom, and systems based on slavery and come before capitalism.
Social stratification and political organization are regarded to have developed from personal relationships and dependencies of any nature. Nicholas understands that feudal laws came to denote the social realities of the political know-how of the people at that time of nation building. To support his argument, the author asserts, “Historical insights have brought to light the variety of the social, economic and political setting of the Italian nation...” (Doumanis, 2001). Prior to the 1500s, the nation idea has not developed. Most people did not consider themselves as part of a nation. The consolidation of power in Italy took a long time due to the differences that people had and the love for the local setting at the expense of their nation.
Centralization is the process by which policy making become centrally located. Nations quickly developed their economies due to the single centralized authority. Merchants were able to carry out the dealings throughout the country without worrying about the local government posting taxation and stringent regulations. Local armies were able to receive consistent training so that all the involved units could work in harmony with one accord. “To realize the project of nationalism, Benito Mussolini...