National Identity

Smith defines national identity as a multidimensional construct with five core features: a historic territory or homeland; common myths and historical memories; a mass public culture; common legal rights and duties for all members; and a common economy with territorial mobility. This definition is deliberately broad enough to include stateless nations like the Basques, Kurds, and Tamils, who share these attributes without possessing a state of their own. For Smith, this multidimensionality is precisely what makes national identity more potent and durable than other collective identities such as class or religion—it can absorb and fuse with them without losing its distinct character.

Smith distinguishes lateral and vertical ethnies. Lateral ethnies, found in Western Europe, were aristocratic and bureaucratic; the state itself created the nation through taxation, conscription, and administration, incorporating middle strata and outlying regions into a dominant culture. England, France, Spain, and Sweden followed this route. Vertical ethnies, found in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, were subject communities bound by organised religion, sacred scriptures, and clergy rather than by a state. Byzantines, Orthodox Russians, Copts, and Armenians followed this route, where vernacular mobilisation and religious institutions sustained ethnic identity under foreign rule.

Smith's definition is deliberately more substantive and less subjective than Anderson's. Anderson famously defines the nation as an imagined political community—imagined because members never know most fellow-members, yet hold a mental image of communion. Smith instead specifies five concrete attributes (territory, myths, public culture, rights, economy) that distinguish national identity from other forms of collective belonging. Where Anderson emphasises the cognitive act of imagining, Smith emphasises the cultural materials and institutional structures that make national identity durable. Yael Tamir noted that the power of nationalism seems embedded in self-deception: the more we learn about its emergence, the less credible the nationalist pretense becomes .

Smith's answer is qualified and depends on context. He argues that nations cannot be created ex nihilo—they must draw on pre-existing ethnic materials, myths, and memories. However, in decolonisation contexts, new states often attempt nation-building by design, and Smith examines these cases with attention to their successes and failures. His 1991 book was written as the Soviet Union was dissolving and ethnic conflicts were erupting from Bosnia to Rwanda, and its argument that ethnic and cultural factors would fuel post-Cold War conflict proved prescient. The final chapter considers whether a post-national world is conceivable, concluding that attempts to supersede national identity typically reproduce its logic.

Reviews were generally positive but noted the book's demanding nature. Foreign Affairs observed that the book 'could not be more relevant to our times,' praising Smith's argument that nations are cultural phenomena encompassing language, sentiments, and symbolism—not merely political bodies . A ThriftBooks reviewer described it as 'intellectually filling' but requiring 'a good deal of background knowledge,' noting that Smith's sweeping historical references 'hit the mark' though his theories 'run a little thin' outside the West . Another reviewer found the book 'incredibly dry' and detected a bias against nationalism as a hindrance to human progress .

National Identity serves as a more accessible synthesis of the ethno-symbolic framework Smith developed in The Ethnic Origins of Nations. The 1986 book established the theoretical foundations—the concept of the ethnie, the lateral/vertical distinction, and the critique of modernism. National Identity, published five years later, distils these arguments into a relatively brief overview suitable for students and general readers. It also extends the analysis to contemporary cases: the divisions in the former Soviet Union, ethnic separatism in Europe, pan-Arab and pan-African movements, and nation-building efforts across continents. The book's final chapter on the prospects of a post-national world is a distinctive addition.