Book Review: The Virtue of Nationalism by Yoram Hazony

This one was just okay. Let’s keep this short:

The book is an explicit defense of nationalism by a Jewish Zionist. It makes good points here and there. Hazony paints an interesting contrast between anarchy and imperialism as he sees these as the natural alternatives to nationalism. Hazony uses the Old Testament of the Bible and the story of the Israelites as his case study for why nationalism is awesome in contrast with what he terms the ‘Christian imperialism’ of much of European history. This lens I think is quite flawed and distracting. It is prone to annoy people of faith and it is premised upon a rather cherrypicked “just so” interpretation of both ancient Israel’s and Europe’s history.

If you can get past that you will find a pretty solid moral defense of the nation state as a concept in the book’s second half. Unfortunately the well-articulated theory is not as effectively tied to history and facts as it needed to be. It’s an engrossing well-written read but the rhetorical approach didn’t work for me. Would not generally recommend this except in very particular cases.

Grade: C+