ABSTRACT
Ernest Gellner's Nations and Nationalism was widely reviewed. The years following its publication in 1983 saw both praise and a number of criticisms of his main arguments. Several critics denied that a social scientist who stood outside of a given culture could determine how such a society actually operated. A number of critics argued no relationship necessarily existed between industrialization and nationalism. For example, nationalism occurred in colonial India, but its leading proponent, Mahatma Gandhi, explicitly rejected Western industrialization. The mechanism whereby industrialization propels nationalism is not entirely clear in John Breuilly view. Breuilly feels Gellner has shown a relationship between nationalism and industrialization but not an exact source. The Australian historian Nick Stargardt argued that industrialization does not necessarily require mass literacy or the standardization of language. He noted that industrialization in Great Britain occurred generations before compulsory education.
