Liah Greenfeld is Professor of Sociology, Political Science, and Anthropology at Boston University, and Distinguished Adjunct Professor at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. She is the author of Mind, Modernity, Madness: The Impact of Culture on Human Experience (Harvard University Press, 2013), Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Harvard University Press, 1992) and The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth (Harvard University Press, 2001).
The claim that the spread of severe mental illness in the US has reached “epidemic” proportions has been heard so often that, like any commonplace, it has lost its ability to shock. But the repercussi… read more
If we want to understand what drove the Boston Marathon bombing suspects to terrorism, the answer almost certainly does not lie in Dagestan, where the brothers lived before moving to the US, or in Che… read more
Much like in Germany in the 1840’s, when appeals to private enterprise converted the entire middle class to nationalism, China’s capitalist restoration has awakened mass nationalism. Hundreds of milli… read more
September 11, 2001, may seem like an inappropriate addition to the history of nationalism, given Al Qaeda’s global pretensions. In fact, now that the initial shock and confusion have given way to a mo… read more
