ABSTRACT
What is a nation, and what is nationalism? There are many answers, as seen in Sandra Wilson’s survey. And as Wilson emphasises, one thing that studies of nationalism have in common is their failure to consider the Japanese case. Viewed from the perspective of any of these theories alone, Japan appears as an exotic outlier, or as a counter-example. 1 However, the chapters in this collection allow us to look over the range of experience of the Japanese nation and of Japanese nationalism across the entire past century and a half, and they reveal numerous points of contact with the experiences of nationalisms elsewhere in the world. Nationalism itself has undergone substantial changes, and the value of the Japanese comparison is that it brings these changes into sharper relief.
