The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation - Taschenbuch

"Brown's book is well written, theoretically informed, and based on significant new archival and ethnographic research. As Clifford Geertz points out, good anthropology makes small facts speak to large issues. This is precisely what Brown does. Exploring how a variety of people, all citizens of the Republic of Macedonia, attempt to deal with 'the awkward details of the past, ' he offers us an understanding of the contested nature of categories of collective identity."--Loring Danforth, Bates College"Solidly anchored in both field and archival research in Macedonia, Keith Brown's book is an important and timely contribution to the comparative study of nationalism. One of its strengths is the careful and original documentation of the controversies that lie behind the conception and construction of national images and monuments, particularly as these concern the tensions between internationalist, nationalist and local visualizations of liberation. It provides the testimonies and analysis necessary to get beyond the truism that national identities are 'constructed, ' as well as 'deeply felt, ' to a real understanding of the interactions between local and supralocal forces at work in the realization of both individual and collective projects of identity-formation. The complex conjunction of local populations and state regimes in the Macedonian case effectively serves as a model for querying national identities more generally."--Laurie Kain Hart, Haverford College