At the centre of the vigorously and attractively argued book, which produces in print form Nigel Biggar's 2011 Didsbury lectures, is a discussion of a variety of questions relating to nationalism, nationality and nationhood. A great strength of the work lies in its wide range of conversation-partners (history, philosophy and political theory as well as theology), which brings a richness of perspective to the examples chosen for discussion. The published version of the lectures was written in the shadow of the then-forthcoming Scottish Independence referendum, but reading them in the light of the outcome of that campaign gives them, if anything, a greater resonance. Answers to the question of what is to be thought, and done, next would certainly be better informed after a reading of this book.

The work comprises four chapters, along with an introduction and a conclusion. The introduction, as well as setting the scene for the discussion, has a couple of pages of valuable definitional material reflecting upon the meaning of ‘nation’, ‘nationalism’ and ‘nation state’; ‘the essence of nation is almost’ (we are told) ‘as elusive as the essence of religion’ (p. xiv), but the short accounts given here serve effectively both as foundation and focus for what follows. In characterising the distinction between ‘nation’ and ‘people’, Biggar draws attention to the notion of viable autonomy for a people. Whilst ethnic and cultural homogeneity of the nation is never strongly stressed, and occasionally noted as practically unlikely and perhaps undesirable, Biggar's treatment of ‘nationhood’ as an achievement of a ‘people’ may make us press more strongly the definition of a ‘people’. To this we return below.

The first chapter, headed ‘Against cosmopolitanism’, offers a defence of the nation, based partly upon inevitability and partly upon the capacity of the nation to serve a variety of human goods. The physical reality of human existence makes our love and service of others, and the care and support they may offer us, subject to constraints of locality. It simply is not possible to love in a vague and diffuse way the whole of humanity; and sometimes the practical expression of love even for distant neighbours may require the mediating instruments which are aspects of the nation. This is not to endorse the pretensions to immortality of any particular nation, but to suggest that the phenomenon of the nation serves particular purposes. One such is the development of the institutions characteristic ultimately of what Biggar terms the ‘nation state’, legal, educational and (interestingly) ecclesiastical (p. xv). Another is to serve as, in effect, a laboratory of ideas; a constrained space for the outworking of aesthetic, intellectual and moral distinctiveness (see p. 10) and the recognition, in foreign encounter, of difference, as a provocation to self-reflection and development. It is in no small measure in defence of such defeasible but important dimensions of national self-identity that borders should be guarded, and mass migration legitimately be regarded as a potential threat to certain goods (beyond such obvious ones as the availability of natural resources to sustain a population).

Biggar's second chapter expands on some themes using the case of England as a basis for discussion, most notably discussing the ‘ecclesiastical’ dimension in his characterisation of the nation state. I imagine that secularist readers of the work, if there be any such, may regard this defence of establishment as somewhat whimsical. It is in fact embedded in a strong critique of Rawlsian political liberalism. If persuaded of the limits of a concept of ‘public reason’ of a Rawlsian sort, it would then be for Biggar's opponents to develop persuasive arguments as to why something with the form of the (historically accidental) English constitutional arrangements as presently enshrined, protective as it is of certain goods, should be overturned.

The third and fourth chapters build upon the qualified defence of the theological legitimacy of the nation, and the discussion of a particular case, to look in more detail at two particular concerns, those of the use and abuse of sovereignty (and thus, in part, of the limits of state sovereignty), and the moral significance of empire. Each chapter is alive to the subtlety of particular examples, which are drawn on to make one cautious regarding generalising conclusions. The statement that ‘I want to . . . reflect on the varied reality of the imperial phenomenon, to argue that empire is no less morally complex and ambiguous than nation’ may serve as indicative of the ambition; the execution is careful, detailed and significant. It is perhaps no complaint, but a mere recognition of the limits of space and necessarily restricted ambition in a short work, to note that much contemporary ‘imperialism’ may be traced to economic factors, and that, whether in thinking about restrictions on national autonomy or on the imperialism of culture and ideas, there is a further dimension to be added to the examples given. To the extent that they are historical, they may in fact fail to represent the shape of discussions regarding sovereignty and empire as they should be had today. Current discussions about the ‘Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership’ between the US and the EU could be an interesting further case study in contemporary power relations, with strong relevance to the concerns studied in these chapters.

To return, though, to the meaning of a ‘people’: the identification of a ‘people’ will, Biggar believes, ‘[i]nvariably . . . include an association with a particular territory’. Historically, this was undoubtedly true. What, though, of a world where the most highly educated may identify with no particular place, but share cultural assumptions and feel a sense of moral community most closely with those most ‘like them’, wherever in the world they may be found? The creeping imperialism of the English language, and the development of efficient global communication systems, the still quite easy movement globally of the most educated and most skilled – are these the foundations of a people without a place, thinking of themselves perhaps as cosmopolitan whilst in fact insulating themselves from the bracing encounter with real difference, loyalty and gratitude which Biggar's defence of the nation would permit and encourage? A reading of this vigorously and attractively argued book, then, is valuable both for what it contains and for questions which point beyond it to the near-future fates of those phenomena which it discusses.