Out of Chaos

“A magnificent history of how concepts of territory, political power, and national identity were molded into nation states. Necessary reading for all those who want to understand how the modern world came into being.” —O. A. Westad, author of The Global Cold War

“A thrilling account of the state-making frenzy which followed 1945—and a genealogy, therefore, of the simultaneous exultation and horror with which we live today.” —Rana Dasgupta, author of After Nations

“This is a brilliant, very necessary rethinking of global history not as globalization but as a global condition in which nation states became the key global actors. This startlingly original book not only forces us to rethink when the nation state became the global norm but also shows the profound economic, political, and social significance of this new form in the years after 1945, not least how it changed in the 1970s and beyond. A must-read for all historians of the twentieth century.” —David Edgerton, author of The Rise and Fall of the British Nation

“A provocative and innovative book that draws on a very broad range of cases from around the world. Out of Chaos provides many fresh insights by retelling a well-known narrative from an unfamiliar perspective; and it is filled to the brim with fascinating characters and their stories.” —Eric Storm, author of Nationalism: A World History

“Jon Wilson’s magisterial study of the nation state explores the central contradiction of its history: How did the recent, unpredictable, and even accidental emergence of this state result in its seeming permanence in our imaginations as much as reality? A crucial intervention.” —Faisal Devji, author of Landscapes of the Jihad

“Out of Chaos is a sparkling political history of the nation state as a political form. With lightly carried erudition, Jon Wilson shows how the nation state emerged through the political contingencies of twentieth-century politics. Full of historical vignettes, Out of Chaos tells the story of a monumental irony: No one planned for the triumph of the nation state form, yet practically every society got it.” —Pratap Bhanu Mehta, author of The Burden of Democracy