Erica Benner, Aoyama Gakuin Yochien, Tokyo

My first book was on nationalism and national identity. Nationalism fascinated me from an early age, no doubt because I was born and grew up in Japan as a gaijin (foreigner), and wanted to understand why some people cared so much about national differences.

In the past few years I've been writing and lecturing a lot about nationalism again, giving in-person talks on nationalism and democracy in the UK, Turkey, Georgia, and elsewhere online. In May 2023 I'll deliver a keynote lecture to the conference on Nationalism and War at the University of Copenhagen.

Really Existing Nationalisms
Oxford University Press, 1995
New version: Verso, 2018

A study of Marx and Engels’ thinking on nationalism and national identity. Erica Benner questions the view that Marx and Engels failed to understand nationalism’s extraordinary power.


'A brave, avowedly revisionist appraisal of what Marx and Engels themselves had to say in this field.'
Times Literary Supplement

'A tour de force...an invaluable contribution to the critique of nationalism theory.'
Mike Davis, New Left Review