National History, Natural States

Published by I. B. Tauris in August 2001; paperback by Bloomsbury in September 2020; Greek translation by Enalios in March 2008.

An important study on nationalism and nation-building, with urgent implications for the present.

Conflicts in southeast Europe during the 1990s drew attention to the close relationship between place and national identity. Robert Peckham here explores the conscious linkage between identity and homeland as this was articulated in nineteenth and early-twentieth-century Greece, a period important to the understanding of the late twentieth-century Balkan crisis. He demonstrates how territory was appropriated through a range of social practices and institutional activities: writing fiction, identifying folklore, sponsoring archaeology, studying geography and cartography. The particularities of place, Peckham argues, were construed both as underpinning a territorial expansion and as a resistance to the homogenizing drive of a state-sponsored nationalism. This book makes an innovative theoretical contribution to the debate on nationalism and nationhood and suggests new ways of thinking about geography and cultural politics.

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ABOUT THIS BOOK:

“In this thoughtful, well-written and wide-ranging analysis, Peckham shows how the disciplines of geography, cartography, history, archaeology, ethnographic fiction, and folklore were all harnessed to the cause of creating an all-encompassing sense of Greek identity in the new kingdom… At a time when rampant nationalism has had, and continues to have, such a destructive effect on the Balkans, this book is particularly relevant.” 

Richard Clogg, Emeritus Fellow, St. Anthony’s College, University of Oxford, Times Literary Supplement (2002), author ― A Concise History of Greece.

“Although nations are impossible to conceive without reference to a territory, there is only a limited number of studies focusing on the territorial aspect of nationalist ideology... Peckham’s work can be primarily classified under cultural geography, but his approach is clearly interdisciplinary and addresses issues widely discussed in history, cultural studies and literature. Peckham’s interdisciplinary and impressively documented approach allows him to situate these arguments in a wider comparative context... This book is an important and original contribution both to the study of Greek nationalism and to wider debates about nationhood and nationalism.” 

Nations and Nationalism (2002).


“... [a] daring and thoughtful book, which will be of interest to students and scholars in the humanities and social sciences.”

History: Reviews of New Books (2002).


“Among the many historically connected issues that resurfaced during the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia, those of geographical borders and conflicting national claims assumed particular significance. Anyone acquainted even remotely with Southeastern Europe is familiar with their volatile dimensions. Robert Peckham has accordingly produced a timely interdisciplinary case study that focuses on Greece for an exposition of nationhood, nationalism, and geographical imagination in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries...Theoretically based, this insightful study with its emphasis on the relationship between land and nation offers a creative critique of the trajectory of Greek nationalism.” 

American Historical Review (2003).

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