Pacific nationalism

September 11 may have changed, among other things, our attitude toward national identities. Long revealed by scholars to be deliberate constructions based, in large part, on historical fantasies, national identities were commonly seen by historians and by non-communitarian political theorists as violently divisive atavisms. But nationalism can tame religious conflict by including religious opponents within a larger and (they may believe) more fundamental identity: that of common nationhood. The study of nationalism may soon come to appreciate its pacifying side.