What Is a Nation? and Other Political Writings

Ernest Renan

Ernest Renan

What Is a Nation? and Other Political Writings

In: Columbia Studies in Political Thought / Political History

Edited by: M. F. N. Giglioli
Preface by: Dick Howard

Columbia University Press | 2018

https://doi.org/10.7312/rena17430

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About this book

What Is a Nation? and Other Political Writings is the first English-language anthology of Ernest Renan’s political thought. It offers a wide selection of Renan’s writings, most previously untranslated. It restores Renan to his place as one of France’s major liberal thinkers and gives vital critical context to his views on nationalism.

Author information

Renan Ernest :

Joseph Ernest Renan (1823–1892) was a French expert of Middle Eastern ancient languages and civilizations, philosopher, and writer. He is best known for his influential historical works on early Christianity and his political theories, especially concerning nationalism and national identity.Giglioli M. F. N. :

Matteo Fabio Nels Giglioli (PhD, Politics, Princeton) is a Research Fellow in the Department of Political and Social Science at the University of Bologna. He is the author of Legitimacy and Revolution in a Society of Masses: Max Weber, Antonio Gramsci, and the Fin-de-Siècle Debate on Social Order (Routledge, 2013).Howard Dick :

Dick Howard (PhD, Philosophy, Texas) is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at SUNY Stony Brook. He is the author of Between Politics and Antipolitics: Thinking About Politics After 9/11 (Palgrave, 2016), The Primacy of the Political: A History of Political Thought from the Greeks to the American and French Revolutions (Columbia, 2010), and The Specter of Democracy (Columbia, 2006), among other titles. He is also a columnist for Le Monde on the American political scene. I chose him as a reader for his expertise in political theory and philosophy.Ernest Renan (1823–1892) was a French scholar of the Ancient Near East and early Christianity, best known for The Life of Jesus (1862), an international best seller, and his views on national identity.

M. F. N. Giglioli is a research fellow in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Bologna. He is the author of Legitimacy and Revolution in a Society of Masses: Max Weber, Antonio Gramsci, and the Fin-de-Siècle Debate on Social Order (2013).

Reviews

Robert D. Priest, Royal Holloway, University of London:
Renan was one of the most significant liberal thinkers in nineteenth-century France. His occasional essays and lectures constituted major interventions in, and helped set the tone of, public debate. What Is a Nation? and Other Political Writings makes a fundamental contribution in bringing to the English reader a variety of Renan’s texts which are either unavailable or dispersed, supported by an excellent introduction and supplemented by highly useful explanatory notes.

Jennifer Pitts, University of Chicago:
This welcome volume makes the political thought of a major figure in the liberal tradition accessible to English readers for the first time. Setting Renan's famous lecture 'What Is a Nation?' alongside a series of previously untranslated essays on diverse subjects from Islamic science to the future of Europe to the nature of historical causation, the volume shows Renan grappling with the many legacies of the French Revolution for the modern world. Giglioli's translations are lucid, reliable, and a pleasure to read. His informative and judicious introduction traces the considerable impact of Renan's controversial ideas—about race, religion, civilization, and reform—on thinkers from left to right in subsequent generations.

J.P. Daughton, Stanford University:
This wonderfully translated and edited collection offers a welcome opportunity to reassess the political writings of Ernest Renan. M.F.N. Giglioli’s judicious selection of essays allows readers to explore how this influential nineteenth-century liberal understood the major challenges of his day: empire, religion, education, and liberty. A principled mind in an era of revolutionaries and demagogues, Renan inspires reflection on the place of intellectual and political engagement in turbulent times.

Frontmatter Free access PDF PDF	i
Contents Free access PDF PDF	v
Acknowledgments Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	vii
Series Editor’s Foreword Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	ix
Introduction Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	xiii
Chronology Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	xli
1. ON CLERICAL LIBERALISM (DU LIBÉRALISME CLÉRICAL, 1848) Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	1
2. MR. DE SACY AND THE LIBERAL TRADITION (M. DE SACY ET L’ÉCOLE LIBÉRALE, 1858) Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	24
3. THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONTEMPORARY HISTORY (PHILOSOPHIE DE L’HISTOIRE CONTEMPORAINE, 1859) Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	50
4. THE ROLE OF THE FAMILY AND THE STATE IN EDUCATION (LA PART DE LA FAMILLE ET DE L’ÉTAT DANS L’ÉDUCATION, 1869) Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	84
5. CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY IN FRANCE (LA MONARCHIE CONSTITUTIONNELLE EN FRANCE, 1869) Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	99
6. THE WAR BETWEEN FRANCE AND GERMANY (LA GUERRE ENTRE LA FRANCE ET L’ALLEMAGNE, 1870) Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	136
7. TWO LETTERS TO MR. STRAUSS (LETTRE & NOUVELLE LETTRE À M. STRAUSS, 1870–1871) Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	158
8. INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL REFORM OF FRANCE (LA RÉFORME INTELLECTUELLE ET MORALE DE LA FRANCE, 1871) Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	182
9. WHAT IS A NATION? (QU’EST-CE QU’UNE NATION?, 1882) Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	247
10. ISLAM AND SCIENCE (L’ISLAMISME ET LA SCIENCE, 1883) Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	264
11. ORIGINAL UNITY AND GRADUAL SEPARATION OF JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY (IDENTITÉ ORIGINELLE ET SÉPARATION GRADUELLE DU JUDAÏSME ET DU CHRISTIANISME, 1883) Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	281
Notes Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	297
Index Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	321

What Is a Nation? and Other Political Writings

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