Ernest Gellner

Director of the Center for the Study of Nationalism Ernest Gellner

This thoughtful and penetrating book, addressed to political scientists, sociologists, historians, and anthropologists, interprets nationalism in terms of its social roots, which it locates in industrial social organization. Professor Gellner asserts here that a society's affluence and economic growth depend on innovation, occupational mobility, the effectiveness of the mass media, universal literacy, and an all-embracing educational system based on a shared, standard idiom. These factors, taken together, govern the relationship between culture and the state. Political units that do not conform to the principle, "one state, one culture" feel the strain in the form of nationalistic activity.

Nations and Nationalism

Ernest Gellner's final book, first published in 1998, is a synoptic interpretation of the thought of Wittgenstein and Malinowski.

Wittgenstein, Malinowski and the Habsburg Dilemma

Language and Solitude

Grazyna Kubica

Janusz Mucha

Roy F. Ellen

Roy Frank Ellen

The Polish Roots of an Anthropological Tradition

Malinowski Between Two Worlds

An exploration of the relationship between culture and politics in the modern world through essays on such varied topics as the Ayatollah Khomeni, Czech dissidents, and Malinowski.

Culture, Identity, and Politics

The essays in this volume gather together Gellner's thinking on the connection between philosophy and life and they approach the topic from a number of directions: philosophy of morals, history of ideas, a discussion of individuals including R. G. Collingwood, Noam Chomsky, Piaget and Eysenck and discussions on the setting of philosophy in the general culture of England and America.

Director of the Center for the Study of Nationalism Ernest Gellner

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