Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify | Listen on other platforms
What is the difference between a people and a nation? In this podcast, Marc Barnes and Alex Denley discuss Ernest Renan's influential lecture "What is a nation?". Renan argues that a nation is not formed by common descent, language, religion, or geography. Rather, a nation is a spiritual principle that requires sacrifice, and a forgetting of the past. Marc and Alex discuss Renan's definition of a nation and how it formed the development of nation states in the modern period.
Registration is open for New Polity Conference 2025!
Ernest Renan's lecture can be found here:
Check out Marc's essay "National Forgetting"
Subscribe to New Polity Magazine!
Join the conversation on our Discord
Remember Everything You Learn from Podcasts
Save insights instantly, chat with episodes, and build lasting knowledge - all powered by AI.
