Neil Davidson on Nation-States: Consciousness and Competition

Neil Davidson's latest work, Nation-States: Consciousness and Competition is composed of a series of extended essays dealing with themes such as the rise of national consciousness under capitalism, the validity of concepts such as "ethnicity", and the role of the state in guaranteeing accumulation and advancing the interests of national capital on the world stage through competition. Neil engages widely with both Marxist and non-Marxist theories of nationalism and capitalist development in order to advance an argument for treating both terms in the hyphenated formula "nation-state" as moments within the mediated totality of the capitalist system - in other words, the connection between the "nation" and the "state" is systemic, even necessary, rather than contingent, as has been argued both by mainstream theorists and some schools within Marxism.

  

Neil is doing a launch event in London on Thursday 11 August 6.30pm at Bookmarks bookshop, 1 Bloomsbury Street, London WC1B 3QE. £2 entry, refreshments required.  For more info, see Facebook event page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/981383828626705/