Talk:Nationalism and ancient history

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[edit] Proposed Merger

I agree with the suggestion of merging this article into Historiography and Nationalism, although I think the redirect from Nationalism and Archaeology should be maintained. People interested in the archaeological aspects should be pointed toward the new article.

I imagine people approaching this question from the perspective of linguistics would also be interested. Perhaps the existing redirect from Linguistic Nationalism to Linguistic Imperialism should be redone as a disimbiguation page:

• For a dominant culture's use of language to express its dominance see Linguistic imperialism.
• For the use of linguistics to support nationalistic ideologies see Historiography and nationalism.

--SteveMcCluskey 15:56, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't decide on a title: since these claims are inherently unscholarly, it isn't possible to classify them as either archaeological or linguistic, they are almost always a confused pot-pourri of cherry-picked factoids and wild speculations. I am unsure about merging, maybe this should remain a sub-article, dealing with archaeological aspects, as opposed to nationalist agendas dealing with events in historical times (historical migrations, battles, etc.)? The point I am trying to make is that it is irrelevant whether the basic proposition is scholarly sound: Even mainstream claims can become tools of nationalism. The Nazis wouldn't have been any more "right" in invading neighbours if their historical claims concerning an "Aryan homeland" had been scientifically tenable. The point isn't whether a claim is true or not, but that it assumes a different quality if you make it a matter of nationalist pride and derive certain "ancestral rights" or ethnic supremacy from them. The Kurgan hypothesis may have more scholarly support than the Armenian hypothesis, yet Ukranians relying on the former for claims of supremacism are doing exactly the same thing as Armenians using the latter. dab (𒁳) 17:01, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Dab that the difference in emphasis needs to be maintained. Moreover, Nationalist historiography is not inherently illegitimate, and often quite scholarly (classic example: R.C. Majumdar). But there's also a vast penumbra of kookery around it, which benefits from any direct association with genuine scholarship, as would happen if the same article had to cover both genres. I added two external links to example material. rudra 06:11, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I would distinguish "patriotic archoaeology", extremely motivated in-depth research into one's own past for love of one's nation, and "nationalist archaeology" where the 'love' is so strong that you know what you want to find beforehand (viz., only the most astounding cultural feats and the cradle of civilization) and will bend your 'research' around that 'knowledge'. The former is clearly a respectable motivation for bona fide scholarship, the latter is obnoxious crankery. dab (𒁳) 17:39, 27 March 2007 (UTC)