Yoram Hazony’s argument in The Virtue of Nationalism (reviewed here and here) depends on a hard either/or between the nation-state and the empire. A nation is either sovereign or it isn’t. Empires inevitably destroy the sovereignty of the states they incorporate, even if this fact is cloaked in lovey liberal euphemisms.
Hazony, moreover, argues that even though empires might appeal to universalistic ideologies, they always begin with a particular people, a particular ethnic core, (more…)
In my review of Yoram Hazony’s The Virtue of Nationalism, I focused on the book’s virtues. Here I wish to examine some of its vices.
The positions I defend in The White Nationalist Manifesto (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2018) are broadly compatible with the main arguments of The Virtue of Nationalism. We both hold that nations are ethnic groups and that the best political system is the nation-state, because it promotes peace between peoples and leaves them free to become who they are, to live according to their unique identities. (more…)
Yoram Hazony The Virtue of Nationalism
New York: Basic Books, 2018
Yoram Hazony is an Israeli political theorist. He has a BA in East Asian studies from Princeton and a Ph.D. in political theory from Rutgers. While at Princeton, he founded a conservative publication, the Princeton Tory. An orthodox Jew and a political Zionist, he is the president of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem. (more…)