Thought and Change

Gellner argues that nationalism is an unintended consequence of industrialisation's uneven global diffusion. Industrial society requires a standardised, literate workforce sharing a common culture, sustained by mass public education. Where modernisation arrives unevenly, uprooted populations and a mobilised intelligentsia turn to language and culture as the new basis for social cohesion. Nationalism is therefore a structural response to industrial society's needs, not the political awakening of pre-existing nations. Anthony Smith calls this 'perhaps the most original and radical statement of classical modernism.'

The seventh chapter of Thought and Change contains Gellner's first sustained statement of his modernist theory of nationalism. Scholars regard this chapter as the nucleus of his later and more famous Nations and Nationalism (1983), where the argument was expanded and refined. Gellner's broader thesis in Thought and Change also anticipated themes developed in Plough, Sword and Book (1988). The book's initial reception was mixed and its nationalism theory attracted little attention until the 1983 work brought it wider recognition.

Both reject the idea that nationalism reflects ancient ethnic ties, but they locate its cause differently. Kedourie, in Nationalism (1960), traces nationalism to a philosophical error: German Romantic ideas about self-determination spreading among European intellectuals. Gellner offers a structural, sociological explanation rooted in industrialisation's requirements for cultural homogeneity and standardised education. For Gellner, nationalism is not primarily an intellectual mistake but a functional response to the conditions of industrial society. Gellner explicitly criticised Kedourie's idealist argument as treating nationalism as an accidental development.

Gellner's industrialisation thesis remains a foundational position in the modernist school, but faces persistent challenges. Critics argue nationalism often emerged before full industrialisation, that many movements mobilised rural rather than industrial populations, and that the model understates political elites and state institutions. Later theorists such as Anthony Smith emphasised the ethnic roots of many nations, complicating Gellner's functionalist account. The theory has also been criticised as too functionalist, for misreading the nationalism-industrialisation relationship, and for failing to explain the passions nationalism generates.

Reviews at the time were mixed. George Lichtheim, writing in The New Statesman in January 1965, called the book important for asking the right questions but remained 'totally unconvinced' by Gellner's answers. Antony Flew, reviewing it in The Spectator in 1965, dismissed it as a pretentious book that read like 'a series of often enigmatic notes' rather than a systematic theory. The book's reputation grew substantially in later decades as scholars recognised its anticipation of Gellner's mature nationalism theory.

No, the book is broader than its later reputation suggests. Gellner ranges across the philosophy of social science, the sociology of knowledge, historicism, and the prospects of industrial society. The nationalism theory occupies a single chapter that became disproportionately influential. Much of the book engages with figures like Popper, Wittgenstein, and Marx. Reviewers noted its somewhat fragmentary structure, reading more like a series of essays than a unified treatise. The book's central organising concern is industrialisation's transformative power, with nationalism as one of its consequences.