This book is not claiming that the appearance of nationalism toward the end of the eighteenth century was produced by the erosion of religious certainties, or that this erosion does not itself require a complex explanation. It is not the suggestion that nationalism historically supersedes religion, but rather that nationalism has to be understood by aligning it with the large cultural system that preceded it and out of which it came into being. It is not useful to merely compare nationalism with the self-consciously held political ideologies that provide its content, but rather it must be woven into a complex historical account of society and nationhood. For present purposes, the two relative cultural systems are the religious community and the dynastic realm. It is essential to consider what gave these cultural systems their self-evident plausibility, and to compare this with the self-evident nature of nationalism.
