ABSTRACT
Liberalism, she seems to be suggesting, has actually needed nationalism. Why? Well, because its hallowed subjects-namely individual persons, each
of whom it lavishly adorns with all manner of rights and liberties-flnd themselves badly in need of some salient form of social identity when they emerge from their various imperial subjugations, ancient and modern. For, whatever severe oppression and disempowerment they endured under those subjugations for so long, one thing they did not thereby lack was a strong sense of social identity: a sense of identity underwritten by their being officially and principally regarded as members of this family or that clan. That particular form of strong social identity being lost to them in the emancipatory world of liberalism, its only plausible replacement is said to consist in their recognition as citizens, as persons possessing significant and fully-fledged membership in a national group. And nationalism is the celebration of that membership.
