Nationalism has become the most destructive and widely felt ideology of our time, replacing the Cold War as the focal point of world politics. In this book, William Pfaff explores where nationalism comes from and where it is taking us. Pfaff explains how nationalism was distorted into Nazism and Communism - and how a resurgence of nationalism defeated both. He details how it undermined colonialism, only to leave much of Africa, Asia and the Middle East beset with unstable or authoritarian governments, and examines how ethnic nationalism, having laid waste to Yugoslavia, now threatens the former Soviet states and the European Union.

Author Biography

William Pfaff is a political columnist for The International Herald Tribune, London's The Observer, and other newspapers. A political essayist for The New Yorker from 1971 to 1992, he is the author of eight previous books, including Barbarian Sentiments: How the American Century Ends, a National Book Award finalist and winner of the City of Geneva's Prix Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He lives in Paris.