ABSTRACT
This book has arisen from a proposal, launched at a University of Wales conference at Gregynog in November 1986, to bring together the contributions of a number of specialists interested in reviewing and reappraising minority nationalism as the decade of the 1980s moved towards its close. It was felt that thee 1980s were proving a significant decade for minority nationalism, though probably in a differet way from the 1960s and 1970s, when it had erupted on the political scene and strongly impressed academic, political and public opinion. It was time to examine what had been happening in the 1980s and in particular how minority nationalism had responded to changing circumstances and conditions. Had developments shed new light on its political and ideological nature, role and significance? There was a feeling that the 1960s and 1970s view of it, which generally stressed its importance and positive character, was in need of revision or at least reconsideration. The undeniable success of the 1960s and 1970s, which had shaken not only fashionable political integration theories but existing political structures, had given way to a decade of questioning, not to say doubt, about minority nationalism's future; it seemed to have fallen out of favour in public, and academic, opinion. How far was this really so? And why should it be?
