The Owl of Minerva 45:1–2 (2013–14) V In summary, Comay has written a startling and refreshing book. She has marshaled an immense amount of cultural-historical analysis, a great deal of considered reflection, and a host of insightful arguments into an interpretation of Hegel that goes well beyond its avowed topic of the French Revolution. This interpretation poses challenges not only to its explicit targets, but to all serious students of Hegel who contend with the difficulties of his views on history, experience, politics, and the weight of cultural tradition. She accomplishes all this in a reasonably-sized book with a rousing prose st yle, and in a way that will hopefully provoke further work along the same or similar lines. Sebastian Rand Georgia State University Notes 1. One arguable exception here is her reading of Hegel on the Pöbel, which attributes to him a kind of intentional, if unacknowledged, performative undermining of his apparent explicit claims to completeness and closure. But if Comay is right, those explicit claims are only apparent. Lydia L. Moland. Hegel on Political Identity: Patriotism, Nationality, Cosmopolitanism. Evanston, IL: Northwestern Universit y Press, 2011. xii + 223 pages. This is an excellent book. Its guiding question might be formulated as follows: how is it possible, from a Hegelian point of view, for someone to be committed to the ideals of nationalism and patriotism, while at the same time being committed to the ideals of cosmopolitanism? At first glance, it appears that nationalism and patriotism stand in stark contrast to any form of cosmopolitanism, and that genuine cosmopolitanism demands that one abandon the cultural and emotive attachments that normally characterize nationalism and patriotism. Moland argues, however, that it is possible to find in the Hegelian corpus a philosophically and politically credible way of thinking about patriotism and cosmopolitanism, one that entails the actual compatibilit y-and even interdependence-of patriotism and cosmopolitanism. In order to make her case, Moland takes the reader on a carefullyconceived and illuminating tour through Hegel's thought on freedom and © The Hegel Society of America ISSN 0030-7580 DOI: 10.5840/owl2013/2014451/24 pp. 112–115 Book Reviews 113 agency, politics and the state, and nationalism and cosmopolitanism. The crux of Moland's pro-Hegelian argument, I would say, depends on two central and interrelated points: first, there is the philosophical-historical point that (for Hegel) the individual becomes truly free not by abstracting from her desires (as Kant held), but rather by shaping her desires through the ongoing activit y of mutual, intersubjective recognition (in other words, the individual becomes free not by abandoning her commitments, but rather by transforming them in the midst of her engagement with other rational selves); and secondly, there is the historical-philosophical point that, for Hegel, patriotism need not be understood only as a constraining, chauvinistic commitment to national feeling, but can also be understood as a potentially liberating commitment to that which is greater than oneself (thus patriotism need not be understood in terms of one's regional or national commitments alone, but can also be understood in terms of one's commitment to a potentially universal, and thus genuinely cosmopolitan, common good). When properly understood, patriotism and cosmopolitanism-according to Moland-can even be seen as requiring or depending on one another: the universalit y of cosmopolitanism does not require that one abstract from one's particular desires, but requires instead that one shape or cultivate these particular desires in the right way; thus the universalit y of cosmopolitanism depends on the proper formation of one's particular patriotic commitments, and-in turn-a rightly-formed patriotism depends on a concretely-instantiated (and not merely abstract) cosmopolitanism. Moland's scholarship in this book is reliable, well-grounded, and insightful; her writing st yle is clear, engaging, and pedagogically effective. Especially impressive is the scope and depth of her understanding of the many issues implicated by Hegel's account of patriotism and cosmopolitanism. In making her case, Moland delves into some difficult, challenging, and frequently misunderstood texts in the Hegelian corpus, most notably: the "Anthropology" section of Hegel's Encyclopedia version of the "Philosophy of Spirit"; Hegel's lectures on the philosophy of history; his lectures on the history of philosophy; and his lectures on aesthetics. Significantly, Moland departs from the rather common (and by now, the highly unoriginal) strategy of mining Hegel's Philosophy of Right for ideas about nationalism, patriotism, and cosmopolitanism. While Moland is quite familiar with the Philosophy of Right, her move beyond this one canonical text allows her to identify and unpack many important insights which have been systematically overlooked by others; this, in turn, allows her to make a compelling and original case for the claim that Hegel is 114 The Owl of Minerva 45:1–2 (2013–14) genuinely committed to both patriotism and cosmopolitanism, and that this dual commitment is a coherent and philosophically defensible one. Moland is well-informed about the relevant primary and secondary literature, and she does a fine job using this secondary literature in order to go beyond and proffer her own, rather innovative interpretation of Hegel. In general, Moland has succeeded in doing what she set out to do in this book: she has shown, by means of serious historical and philosophical analysis, how Hegel offers a way in which we might conceive the compatibilit y, and even the interdependence, of patriotism and cosmopolitanism. I learned a great deal from Moland's book, and indeed it left me wanting to learn more. It seems to me that the book opened up two especially promising, yet-to-beexplored areas for further argumentation and development: 1) Moland quite rightly points out that, for Hegel, it is the modern state that uniquely facilitates the unit y of "personal particularit y" and "universal welfare," and thus uniquely facilitates the peaceful co-existence of "nationalism" and "cosmopolitanism" in actual political arrangements. One might make the further argument that this unit y of "nationalism" and "cosmopolitanism" is in fact just a special case of a more important and farreaching conceptual or logical unit y in Hegel's thought; this is the conceptual or logical unit y of the "particular" (corresponding to the "national") and the "universal" (corresponding to the "cosmopolitan"); and in various places throughout his system, Hegel gives expression to this conceptual or logical unit y (most notably, in his Science of Logic). My guess is that Moland's overall argument about the unit y of "nationalism" and "cosmopolitanism" might be mapped directly and explicitly on to a further, logical argument about the unit y of the "particular" and the "universal" in Hegel's thought. Moland's richly suggestive book has left me wondering whether she would agree about the possibilit y of such a mapping, and-if so-how she would articulate its conceptual-logical expression. 2) Moland convincingly argues that the Hegelian account of patriotism and cosmopolitanism is generally relevant to contemporary debates in political philosophy, and in particular to contemporary debates about rational agency, political identit y, nationalism, cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, and globalization. One might argue that Moland's case in favor of the contemporary relevance of Hegel could be even further bolstered if it were presented alongside a direct and robust engagement with the work of various contemporary political philosophers (e.g. Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel, and Book Reviews 115 others) who have openly acknowledged the relevance of Hegel's thought to their own. My guess (once again) is that the Hegelian position which Moland puts forward in this book is conceptually continuous with (and, arguably, more historically and philosophically rigorous than) than the positions put forward by Taylor, Sandel, and other post-Hegelian political philosophers. I would be most interested to know how Moland's reconstruction of Hegelian thought might play out, if placed explicitly into dialogue with contemporary thinkers who have tried in their own ways to integrate pro-Hegelian insights into their versions of political philosophy. To summarize: the central thesis of Moland's book is well-explained, well-grounded in the relevant literature (both primary and secondary literature), and engagingly presented. The main conclusions that Moland draws are historically accurate and philosophically sound. The book makes insightful and innovative use of primary and secondary sources, and it provides an excellent (indeed, ground-breaking) account of how Hegel's favorable statements about patriotism and national pride are nevertheless compatible with his commitment to a version of cosmopolitanism that many post-Kantian cosmopolitans today might endorse. The book opens up some rather compelling avenues for further enquiry, especially-in my view-regarding (1) the logical-conceptual structure of, and (2) the contemporary relevance of, Hegel's thought on nationalism and cosmopolitanism. It is greatly to be hoped that Moland's future plans will include travel upon the avenues of enquiry that her book has so helpfully opened up. Michael Baur Fordham University Slavoj Žižek. Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism. London: Verso, 2012. 1,038 pages. Should we celebrate Žižek's self-declared yet ironic support for the Hegelian philosophical legacy in the context of his clearly demoralized rejection of his former Marxist beliefs? Žižek proclaims, "[I]n a way, Hegel was closer to the mark than Marx, the twentieth century attempts to enact the Aufhebung of the rage of the disenfranchised masses into the will of the proletarian agent to resolve the social antagonisms ultimately failed, the 'anachronistic' Hegel © The Hegel Society of America ISSN 0030-7580 DOI: 10.5840/owl2013/2014451/23 pp. 115–