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Sinews of the Nation: Constructing Irish and Zionist Bonds in the United States
Author(s): Dan Lainer-Vos (Author)
- Publisher: Polity
- Publication Date: 16 Nov. 2012
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 240 pages
- ISBN-10: 9780745662640
- ISBN-13: 9780745662640
Book Description
Sinews of the Nation treats nation-building as a practical organizational accomplishment and examines how the Irish republicans and the Zionist movement secured financial support in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. Comparing the Irish and Jewish experiences, whose trajectories of homeland-diaspora relations were very different, provides a unique perspective for examining how national movements use economic transactions to attach disparate groups to the national project.
By focusing on fundraising, Lainer-Vos challenges the common view of nation-building as only a matter of forging communities by imagining away internal differences: he shows that nation-building also involves organizing relationships so as to allow heterogeneous groups to maintain their difference and yet contribute to the national cause. Nation-building is about much more than creating unifying symbols: it is also about creating mechanisms that bind heterogeneous groups to the nation despite and through their differences.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Craig Calhoun, London School of Economics and Political Science
“A unique take on the voluminous literature on nationalism and national identity. Lainer-Vos locates nation-building in diaspora communities that send money home to their national states that are engaged in highly contentious nationalist struggles. The idea of looking at the strength of national identity in the homeland and the diaspora through the lens of contributions to bond drives is original and compelling. Lainer-Vos unites economic sociology and political sociology in a novel way. The choice of the two cases, Ireland and Israel, is apt. Sinews of the Nation, impeccably researched and well written, injects new life into a well trodden field.”
“How are nations built? Drawing from Irish and Zionist experiences, Dan Lainer-Vos’
Sinews of the Nation demonstrates the crucial role of monetary transactions in forging national movements. With style, compelling arguments, and fascinating evidence, Lainer-Vos sets up a novel research agenda. A welcome contribution to political and economic sociology.”Viviana A. Zelizer, Princeton University
