Michael Herzfeld, "Subversive Archaism: Troubling Traditionalists and the Politics of National Heritage" (Duke UP, 2022)

New Books in Sociology · Nov 2, 2022 · 47m

In Subversive Archaism: Troubling Traditionalists and the Politics of National Heritage (Duke UP, 2022), Michael Herzfeld explores how individuals and communities living at the margins of the modern nation-state use nationalist discourses of tradition to challenge state authority under both democratic and authoritarian governments. Through close attention to the claims and experiences of mountain shepherds in Greece and urban slum dwellers in Thailand, Herzfeld shows how these subversive archaists draw on national histories and past polities to claim legitimacy for their defiance of…