In When Nationalism Began to Hate, Brian Porter offers a challenging new explanation for the emergence of xenophobic, authoritarian nationalism in Europe. He begins by examining the common assumption that nationalist movements by nature draw lines of inclusion and exclusion around social groups, establishing authority and hierarchy among "one's own" and antagonism towards "others." Porter argues instead that the penetration of communal hatred and social discipline into the rhetoric of nationalism must be explained, not merely assumed. Porter focuses on nineteenth-century Poland, tracing the transformation of revolutionary patriotism into a violent anti-Semitic ideology. Instead of deterministically attributing this change to the "forces of modernization," Porter demonstrates that the language of hatred and discipline was central to the way "modernity" itself was perceived by fin-de-siècle intellectuals. The book is based on a wide variety of sources, including political speeches and posters, newspaper articles and editorials, underground brochures, published and unpublished memoirs, personal letters, and nineteenth-century books on history, sociology, and politics. It embeds nationalism within a much broader framework, showing how the concept of "the nation" played a role in liberal, conservative, socialist, and populist thought. When Nationalism Began to Hate is not only a detailed history of Polish nationalism but also an ambitious study of how the term "nation" functioned within the political imagination of "modernity." It will prove an important text for a wide range of students and researchers of European history and politics.

Prizes

Winner of A ^IChoice^R Outstanding Academic Title for 2000.

"Porter's (stimulating and provocative study) is subtle and careful in the way it defines and describes. His work makes an important contribution to understanding Polish (and, indeed, east central European) nationalism and successfully revises some traditional interpretations and stereotypes. * Choice *
Brian Porter is an eminent specialist in the history of Polish national consciousness. He has managed to objectively describe the complex genesis and the historical context of Polish nationalism. This work offers a new way of looking at the fundamental problem for all of Central and Eastern Europe. * Adam Michnik, Editor-in-Chief, Gazeta Wyborcza, Warsaw *
the book is a very welcome addition to the historiographies of both Poland and nationalism, brining an expanded base of sources, fresh hypotheses, and skillful discussion to familiar topics. It succeeds admirably in being at once provocative and authoritative in its scholarship and simultaneously empathetic and critical toward the subject matter. * American Historical Review *

Brian Porter is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Michigan.