This innovative book presents an overview of the origins of nationalism to enable students coming to the subject for the first time to get a handle on the current key issues, controversies, theorists and ideas in the area - and in a manageable way. Rather than just presuming a connection to everyday life, this book makes these connections by demonstrating how national identity has been caught up with processes such as citizenship, language, schooling, migration, sport, warfare, tourism, landscapes, heritage and tradition. Heavily illustrated with contemporary international case studies, this book provides a timely introduction to nationalism since the end of the Cold War and will appeal across the disciplines of: sociology, anthropology, political geography, politics, as well as area, cultural and post-colonial studies.