Hans Kohn (Hebrew: הַנְס כֹּהן, or קוהן , September 15, 1891 – March 16, 1971) was an American philosopher and historian. He pioneered the academic study of nationalism, and is considered 'the most influential theorist of nationalism' (John Hall, McGill University).
Author : Hans Kohn
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In this sixtieth anniversary edition of The Idea of Nationalism, Craig Calhoun probes the work of Hans Kohn and the world that first brought prominence to this unparalleled defense of the national ideal in the modern West. At its publication, Saturday Review called it 'an enduring and definitive treatise.... [Kohn] has written a book which is less a history of nationalism than it is a history of Western civilization from the standpoint of the national idea.' This edition includes an extensive new introduction by Craig Calhoun, which in itself is a substantial contribution to the history of ideas. The Idea of Nationalism comprehensively analyzes the rise of nationalism, the idea's content, and its worldwide implications from the days of Hebrew and Greek antiquity to the eve of the French Revolution. As Calhoun explains, Kohn was particularly qualified to undertake this study. He grew up in Prague, the vigorous heart of Czech nationalism, participated in the Zionist student movement, studied the question of nationality in multinational cultures, spent the World War One years in Asian Russia, and later traveled extensively in the Near East studying the nationalist movements of western and southern Asia. The work itself is the product of Kohn's later years at Harvard University. In The Idea of Nationalism, Kohn presents the single most influential articulation of the distinction between civic and ethnic nationalism. This has shaped nearly all ensuing research and public discussion and deeply informed parallel oppositions of early and late, Western and Eastern varieties of nationalism. Kohn also argues that the age of nationalism represents the first period of universal history. Civilizations and continents are brought into ever closer contact; popular participation in politics is enormously increased; and the secular state is ever more significant. The Idea of Nationalism is important both in itself and because it so deeply shaped all the work that followed it. After sixty years his interpretations and analyses remain acute and instructive.ISBN : 1412804760
Genre : Political Science
File Size : 42.48 MB
Format : PDF, ePub
Download : 784
Read : 688
Hans Kohn (Hebrew: הַנְס כֹּהן, or קוהן, September 15, 1891 – March 16, 1971) was an American philosopher and historian of Czech-Jewish origin. He pioneered the academic study of nationalism, and is considered 'the most influential theorist of nationalism' (John Hall, McGill University).
- 1Life
Life[edit]
He was born into the German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After graduating from local German grammar school (1909), he studied philosophy, political science and law at the German part of the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague.
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Shortly after graduation he was called to the infantry of the Austro-Hungarian army at the end of 1914 and after absolving of military drills was sent at the Eastern Front of the World War I, against the Russians in the Carpathian Mountains. During the 1915 was captured. From the prison camp on the territory of present-day Turkmenistan was set free only after arriving of the Czechoslovak legions. With them he underwent their march to east ('Siberian anabasis'), at the end of which he boarded in Irkutsk and headed to Europe, where he returned in 1920.
In the following years he lived in Paris (where he married Jetty Wahl in 1921) and then the pair moved to London, where Kohn worked for Zionist organizations and wrote articles for newspapers.
He moved to Palestine in 1925, but visited the United States frequently, eventually immigrating in 1934.
Academic career[edit]
Kohn taught modern history at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. From 1948 to 1961, he taught at City College of New York. He also taught at the New School for Social Research, Harvard Summer School.
He wrote numerous books on nationalism, Pan-Slavism, German thought, and Judaism. He was an early contributor to the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, where he died.
In 1944 he published his major work The Idea of Nationalism about the dichotomy between Western and Eastern Nationalism. Kohn sought to understand the emergence of nationalism through the development of Western civilization and the rise of liberalism.'[1] He also published a biography of Martin Buber. His autobiography, published in 1964, includes reflections on the times he lived through as his personal life.
Zionist activism[edit]
Kohn was a prominent leader of Brit Shalom, which promoted a binational state in Palestine.[2]In 1929, Kohn wrote his condemnation of Zionism and Jewish settlers' practices: 'The means determine the goal. If lies and violence are the means, the results cannot be good. ... We have been in Palestine for twelve years (i.e. since the 1917 Balfour Declaration) without having even once made a serious attempt at seeking through negotiations the consent of the indigenous people. ... I believe that it will be possible for us to hold Palestine and continue to grow for a long time. This will be done first with British aid and then later with the help of our own bayonets – shamefully called Haganah ('defense') – clearly because we have no faith in our own policy. But by that time we will not be able to do without the bayonets. The means will have determined the goal. Jewish Palestine will no longer have anything of that Zion for which I once put myself on the line.'[3]
Works[edit]
- A History of Nationalism in the East', 1929
- Nationalism and Imperialism in the Hither East', 1932
- Western Civilization in the Near East, 1936
- Force Or Reason: Issues of the Twentieth Century, 1938
- The Idea of Nationalism: A Study in Its Origins and Background, 1944
- The Twentieth Century: A Midway Account of the Western World, 1950
- Pan-Slavism: Its History and Ideology, 1953
- Nationalism and Liberty: The Swiss Example, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1956
- American Nationalism: An Interpretative Essay, Macmillan, New York, 1957
- Heinrich Heine: The Man and the Myth, Leo Baeck Institute, New York, 1959
- The Habsburg Empire, 1804–1918, 1961
- Living in a World Revolution: My Encounters with History, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1964
- Nationalism: Its Meaning & History, 1965, reprint/revised, 1982
- Absolutism and Democracy 1814-1852, D. Van Nostrand, Princeton, New Jersey, 1965
- The Mind of Germany, Harper Torchbooks, 1965
- Prelude to Nation-States: The French and German Experiences, 1789-1815 D. Van Nostrand, 1967.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^James Kennedy (University of Edinburgh) and Maarten Van Ginderachter (Antwerp University). 'Nations and Nationalism from the margins: A research agenda'. University of Antwerp. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
- ^Zohar Maor. 'Hans Kohn and the Dialectics of Colonialism: Insights on Nationalism and Colonialism from Within'. Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook. 55 (1): 255–271. doi:10.1093/lbyb/ybq038.
- ^Kohn's letter is quoted in Israeli Pacifist, The Life of Joseph Abileah, by Anthony G. Bing, with a foreword by Yehudi Menuhin, p. 69. Bing calls it 'Kohn's letter of farewell to Zionism.'
Further reading[edit]
- Gordon, Adi. Towards Nationalism's End: An Intellectual Biography of Hans Kohn, Brandeis (2017).
- Gordon, Adi. 'The Need for West: Hans Kohn and the North Atlantic Community.' Journal of Contemporary History 46#1 (2011): 33-57.
- Kohn, Hans. Living in a World Revolution: My Encounters with History (1964), Autobiography, a primary source.
- Liebich, Andre. 'Searching for the perfect nation: the itinerary of Hans Kohn (1891–1971).' Nations and Nationalism 12.4 (2006): 579-596.
- Maor, Zohar. 'Hans Kohn and the Dialectics of Colonialism: Insights on Nationalism and Colonialism from Within'. Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 55 (1): 255–271. doi:10.1093/lbyb/ybq038.
- Wolf, Ken. 'Hans Kohn's liberal nationalism: the historian as prophet.' Journal of the History of Ideas 37#4 (1976): 651-672. in JSTOR
External links[edit]
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Hans Kohn |
- Works by or about Hans Kohn at Internet Archive
- http://www.cjh.org/collections/findingaids.php?action=searchPartners&partner=3 (biography)
- http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/manuscript/guides/buber.htm (biography)
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