Live Online Book Forum 

# *After Nationalism: Being American in an Age of Division*

### (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020) 

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Date and Time 

June 4, 2021 11 AM - 12:30 PM EDT 

Location 

Live Online 

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##### Featuring 

![Samuel Goldman picture](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2021-05/Sam_Goldman_1080x720%20Cropped.jpg?itok=doPbZDi9) 

Samuel Goldman 

Executive Director of the John L. Loeb Jr. Institute for Religious Freedom, George Washington University

[ 

](https://twitter.com/swgoldman) 

![Anatol Lieven](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2021-05/lieven-anatol%20Cropped.jpg?itok=kIwVtl-y) 

Anatol Lieven 

Senior Fellow, Quincy Institute

[![Justin Logan cropped portrait new](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2023-08/Justin-Logan-cropped.jpg?itok=1xXiDWfG)](/people/justin-logan) 

[Justin Logan](/people/justin-logan)

Director of Defense and Foreign Policy Studies, Cato Institute

[ 

](https://x.com/JustinTLogan) [ 

](mailto:jlogan@cato.org) 

What is American identity? How people answer that question has implications for their views on policy and politics in the United States. The current era has seen the growth of explicit nationalism in American politics. In *After Nationalism*, Samuel Goldman examines whether the United States has ever had a stable vision of shared identity and purpose. Examining the country from its founding to the modern day, Goldman highlights recurring contestation over what it means to be an American and shows how the coercive Americanization efforts of prior eras are unlikely to pass muster in modern America.

Rejecting romantic notions of the past, Goldman urges a more pluralistic approach: “Rather than trying to restore an elusive consensus, I propose that we strengthen institutions of contestation.” Please join Goldman and Anatol Lieven, author of *America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism*, for a discussion of what America was, is, and should be.

![After Nationalism book cover](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/promo_block_book_cover_1x/public/2021-05/after-nationalism-cover.jpg?itok=Jb0J9NP6) 

##### Featured Book 

### *[After Nationalism: Being American in an Age of Division](https://www.amazon.com/Nationalism-Radical-Conservatisms-Samuel-Goldman/dp/0812251644/?tag=catoinstitute-20)*

Nationalism is on the rise across the Western world. For the first time in decades, an expressly nationalist movement has emerged in American politics. In *After Nationalism*, Samuel Goldman trains a sympathetic but skeptical eye on the trend, highlighting the deep challenges that face any contemporary effort to revive social cohesion at the national level.

[Purchase Book](https://www.amazon.com/Nationalism-Radical-Conservatisms-Samuel-Goldman/dp/0812251644/?tag=catoinstitute-20) 

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