A powerful and impassioned intervention in our thinking about nationalism and colonialism. Arguing that nationalism in the context of India was neither tragedy nor farce, Chatterjee brilliantly demonstrated how the derivative character of colonial discourse has produced both the power as well as the predicament of nationalism in the twentieth century. This book provides critical insight into the character of the post-colonial condition.

Yet Nationalist Thought is by far the best theoretical work on postcolonial nationalism to appear in ages. Examining the intellectual production of three dominant natsents [national subject-agents] within the Indian nationalist movement, Chatterjee, a leading member of the now famous Subaltern Studies collective, has a new thesis about the texture of anticolonial nationalist thought. Essentially, the book does two things: accounts for the contradiction at the heart of natsent thinking within a colonial-capitalist context; and explains why anticolonial nationalism typically has been reformist, not revolutionary. It illuminates many contexts, not just the Indian. Fascinating and suggestive.

This is a creative contribution in Chatterjee’s interpretation of Indian nationalism.

Partha Chatterjee usefully problematizes the concept of nationalism, and challenges the usual claims made in its defense. His work will be valuable not only to students and scholars of history, but to all those involved in studies of colonization and the complex and painful processes of decolonization.

Brilliant, globally learned, uncompromising, lucid. Required reading for anyone interested in the history, theory, and politics of nationalism.