Waves of War: Nationalism, State Formation, and Ethnic Exclusion in the Modern World

“Andreas Wimmer’s Waves of War: Nationalism, State Formation, and Ethnic Exclusion in the Modern World is a sweeping study of the rise of the nation-state, the incidence of ethnic exclusion, and the onset and prevalence of civil and interstate wars…highly imaginative and offers much in the way of future research agendas for scholars of conflict. It is well worth the read. ” -Erin K. Jenne, Central European University, H-Diplo

“Beginning in the nineteenth century, cycles of violent upheaval and world war collapsed empires and dynastic kingdoms, while the nation-state spread to every corner of the globe. This ambitious book provides one of the best accounts yet of this grand transformation of the global political order, driven by the explosive appeal of nationalism and self-rule… Wimmer’s major contribution is to demonstrate how the spread of the nation-state generated violence and war. Marshaling carefully assembled quantitative evidence, Wimmer shows that the incidence of war more than doubled once nationalism gained a foothold in world politics and triggered violent struggles over borders, ethnicity, and self-determination.”-G. John Ikenberry, Foreign Affairs

“Andreas Wimmer s Waves of War uses quantitative comparative-historical analysis with stunning success to address some of the biggest questions of macrosociology: the creation of large-scale ethnic communities, the birth of the nation-state, and the role of warfare in the creation of the modern political world.” – James Mahoney, Northwestern University”

Andreas Wimmer s Waves of War: Nationalism, State Formation, and Ethnic Exclusion in the Modern World is a sweeping study of the rise of the nation-state, the incidence of ethnic exclusion, and the onset and prevalence of civil and interstate wars…highly imaginative and offers much in the way of future research agendas for scholars of conflict. It is well worth the read. -Erin K. Jenne, Central European University, H-Diplo”

“Combining the broad landscapes of comparative macro sociology (in the tradition of Stein Rokkan) with data-filled attention to the micro processes of nation formation (in the tradition of Karl Deutsch), Andreas Wimmer paints an original and compelling picture of the historical development of the nation-state and the relationship of state-building to contemporary violence.” – David D. Laitin, Watkins Professor of Political Science, Stanford University

“For all their usefulness, quantitative studies of conflict often suffer from theoretical shallowness and historical myopia. Andreas Wimmer complements his quantitative study of global conflict with a deep theoretical understanding of nationalism and ethnicity. He then embeds it into a powerful historical account of the rise and spread of the nation-state during the past two centuries. Waves of War is a critical and timely contribution to the study of conflict that sets a new standard.” – Stathis N. Kalyvas, Yale University