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the people who actually make it, and endure it, in the towns and villages between. Nationalism is not so much embedded in social and economic history, as intertwined in it; and its teasing out for the purposes of historical explanation is laborious and frustrating. Alan Butt Philip, in an introduction to this collection of conference papers, refers to the 'fly paper' quality of nationalism. The concept of nationalism as fly paper has its defects. Fly paper is certainly attractive to potential clients looking for somewhere to land; it is somewhat discriminating (some bodies are not attracted, some cannot land); but adherence is lethal. Still the analogy conveys the capacity of the idea of nationalism to tidy up and bring order to history and politics-just like class conflict. The contributors to this interesting symposium are aware of the problems implied for the study of nationalism. Some tackle the difficulties head-on and show how we might discover, dissect and analyse the variety of political phenomena associated with nationalism. The specific question which each paper faces is to assess the relative weight of economic and cultural factors in nationalism. Studies of Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland are set beside papers on Ireland, Wales and Scotland. Mostly the contributors are sceptical of firm answers, especially on economic causation. One concludes: 'The history of Finland is distinctive and perhaps unusual' — a conclusion more widely applicable. The nineteenth century is seen as a turning point in the history of nationalism in many countries. If anything, culture predominates over economics as an explanation of nationalism. Professor Campbell, writing about Scotland, interestingly concludes that nineteenth-century nationalism could not be related to economics since governments were not then held responsible for economic intervention. Culture is drawn very broadly as a summary of social, economic and political experience: while there are economic causes for social tensions, they must be seen in a framework of well-defined cultural patterns of relationships between communities.' Professor Cullen's paper on Ireland is particularly illuminating on the elusiveness, variability and locality of nationalism. His reference to the 'great, rectangular landlord-created square' at Crossmaglen stays in the mind as a reminder of these qualities: the currents that swirl around south Armagh relate to a particular episode of Protestant colonialisation in the late-eighteenth century and make one whirlpool in the great sea of Irish nationalism. Professor Cullen emphasises historiography itself as a powerful impulse in the history of nationalism. Irish history as a detailed study dates from the 1860s and reflects the outlook of that time. Rosalind Mitchison also recognises the role of history in history, noting that history was not taught in Scottish universities until the 1890s. Professor Cullen has an arresting paragraph on the racial element in nationalism (an aspect we neglect because race has -come to mean colour- prejudice). He notes the 'emerging cult [towards the end of the nineteenth century] of using terms with marked racial connotations: Saxon, Gall, Sasanach, West Briton'. Some of these were taken from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literature in Irish, but 'their ready imitation in English and their frequent and often vituperative employment betray a profound and deep racial antipathy' (p. 95).