Ernest Gellner

Ernest Gellner (1925–1995) was a British-Czech philosopher and social anthropologist whose work connected nationalism and modernity to industrial society and the social organization of knowledge.

Nationalism: A political principle that holds that national and political units should be congruent. Gellner treated nationalism as a product of modern social conditions, not an ancient human impulse.
Nationalism in Gellner's theory: An account of nationalism as a political principle generated by the needs of industrial society. It states the central causal argument connecting modern social structure to national politics.
Paris: The capital of France and a major European center of intellectual and political life. Gellner was born in Paris in 1925 to a Czech Jewish family.
Karl Popper: An Austrian-British philosopher of science known for falsifiability and criticism of historicism. Gellner shared Popper’s opposition to historicist certainty and drew on his critical rationalism.
Thought and Change: Ernest Gellner’s 1964 book examining social change and the conditions that shape thought. It contains an early formulation of the argument that nationalism follows from industrial society.
Industrial society: A society organized around mechanized production, occupational mobility, and sustained economic growth. Its mobile workforce needs standardized communication and education in Gellner’s account.
Standardized education: State-organized schooling that teaches common language, skills, and cultural references across a population. Mass education transmits the shared culture Gellner saw as necessary for industrial life.
Czechoslovakia: A Central European state that existed from 1918 to 1992, apart from its wartime occupation. Gellner’s family moved there from Paris before his emigration to Britain in 1939.
Émile Durkheim: A French sociologist who analyzed how social structures and institutions shape collective life. Gellner’s explanations likewise give social organization a central role in shaping beliefs and institutions.
Nations and Nationalism: Ernest Gellner’s 1983 book presenting a modernist theory of nationalism. This is his clearest and most influential statement of nationalism as a modern political principle.

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