From the early 1970s Conor Cruise O'Brien acquired a reputation in Ireland and internationally as one of the most vociferous critics of nationalism. While many see the origins of his critique in his reaction to the emergence of militant nationalism in Northern Ireland at this time, in this article I argue that the foundations of O'Brien's anti-nationalism had already been laid in the postwar European context. The article illustrates how O'Brien's historical and intellectual experience in the aftermath of the Second (...) World War had an essentially conservative influence on his thought, providing him with a pool of ideas which he would later employ in his attack on nationalism, and Irish nationalism in particular. I therefore maintain that there is a lot more continuity in O'Brien's thought than is sometimes assumed. (shrink)

Introduction: nativism, exceptionalism, emics, and etics -- Kokugaku, nativism, and "exceptional" Japan -- Sonnō jōi : nativism and Bakumatsu Japan -- Proving uniqueness and asserting superiority : the history of exceptionalism -- Seventeenth-century Tokugawa exceptionalism -- From exceptionalism to nativism : Mitogaku and nineteenth-century Japan -- Conclusion : transcending Confucian hierarchy with a logocentric binary.

In this article I revisit the ideas of Antonio Gramsci and Nikolai Bukharin from a contextual perspective to argue for a revision in the way current scholarship on Gramsci interprets his thought as fundamentally at odds with that of Bukharin. I show in particular that if we resist the temptation to reduce Bukharin to the level of his 1921 book, Historical Materialism, and concentrate instead on his more sophisticated NEP writings of the mid-1920s a series of symmetries in the advanced (...) thought of these two key thinkers of early 20th century Marxism emerges that have been poorly recognised in the literature on Gramsci to date. (shrink)

In this article I explore the relatively neglected usage of conceptions of balance and equilibrium in Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony by adopting a contextual approach to his writings that situates them in an intellectual and historical milieu in which the quest for 'equilibrium' had become one of the most important issues of the day. In the first part of the article I show how ideas of balance and equilibrium were developing among sources familiar to Gramsci, including Italian Fordism, the (...) theorists of the Russian Revolution and neo-classical economics. The second part demonstrates how Gramsci developed these ideas within the framework of his theory of hegemony. My aim is not only to provide a new perspective on Gramsci's hegemony, but also to suggest that incorporating notions of balance and equilibrium into the theory will render it more coherent and realistic for its contemporary deployment in political and ideological analysis. (shrink)