The National Mind: Emotion, Cognition, and Nationalism

The National Mind argues that understanding the power of nationalism requires probing into its cognitive and emotional influence on our everyday perceptions, feelings, beliefs, and behavior. Focusing particularly on the impact of canonical national narratives on thinking and feeling norms in society, it develops an interdisciplinary cognitive approach to the question of how nationalism shapes our minds, and eventually, our world. It derives insights from longstanding philosophical and scholarly debates on the social nature of knowledge and feeling as well as recent cognitive research on emotions and the perception of reality. Grounding its theoretical investigation in empirical observations about a prominent non-Western case, namely, contemporary Turkey, The National Mind demonstrates how nationalist narratives and conceptions dominate our social and political common sense, at both societal and global levels. It offers a comprehensive and original interpretation of how the ‘national mind’ operates in everyday experiences. This groundbreaking book will appeal to students and scholars of psychology, philosophy, politics, history, sociology, and nationalism studies.