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Mexican Studies / Estudios Mexicanos relate the question of Mexican nationalism-and the process of forging a nation-to more general considerations about nationalism and nation building.Scholars are keen to assert the overriding importance of nationalism in the modem world. Loyalty to nation, it is often said, exceeds loyalty to community, class, or, indeed, to any other "imagined community," be it religious, regional or political. "Of all the visions and faiths that compete for men's loyalties in the modern world," Anthony Smith observes, "the most widespread and persistent is the national ideal" (Smith 1979, 1; Connor 1978, 377). The ostensibly powerful Second International, committed to peace and workingclass solidarity, could not avert the First World War. Post-1918 nationalism nurtured fascism, while, in the wake of the Second World War, anticolonial nationalism transformed the political map of the Third World. As Clifford Geertz observed some twenty years ago: "Nationalism-amorphous, uncertainly focused, half-articulated, but for all that highly inflammable-is still the major collective passion in most new states, and in some it is virtually the only one" (Geertz 1993, 237). Thus the newly independent states of Asia and Africa readily adopted the norm of the nation-state-whose subsequent demise, at the hands of internationalist forces (be they nongovernment organizations or transnational companies), proved to be much exaggerated. If there was a threat to the nation-state, as constituted, it seemed to come from an insurgent "neonationalism" from within, which-in the shape of Basque, Occitanian, or Quebecois separatism-challenged nation-states whose "imagined community" had appeared to be powerfully and durably "imagined" (Smith 1979, chap. 6). Most recently, nationalism has proved a solvent not only of the Soviet bloc, but also of its fragile successor states; hence the savage bloodletting in erstwhile Yugoslavia or the Caucasus. Nationalism's prominent historical role has, of course, provoked abundant scholarship. Within this scholarship, however, Latin America has been somewhat neglected (Gellner 1987, 43; Smith 1983, preface; Anderson 1983, chap. 4 is an exception). The major comparative studies of nationalism-those which seek to present a compendious, comparative analysis of its genesis and character-are either Eurocentric, or, at least, Old World-centric (a neologism is clearly called for) (Breuilly ). Conversely, there are few broad studies of Latin American nationalism which engage with the mainstream literature.1 There are, of course, valuable 1. Masur 1966, is something of an exception. Konig 1979, offers a useful bibliographical resume. This content downloaded from ...
