Keywords
national consciousness, cultural foundations of modernity, postcolonial development, political culture
Abstract
Few scholars have influenced my intellectual development as much as Liah Greenfeld. While my academic interests emerged from an attempt to understand the Grenada Revolution and its collapse in 1983, it was Greenfeld's work that provided clarity to the questions I asked and the conceptual tools I employed to answer the question: What caused the collapse of the Grenada Revolution? Her scholarship redirected my attention away from conventional explanations rooted exclusively in economics, ideology, or political institutions and toward the cultural foundations of modernity itself. More specifically, Greenfeld's theory of nationalism provided a framework through which I came to embrace a better understanding of the Grenadian experience as well as the broader challenges of postcolonial development, nation formation, and political culture.
Recommended Citation
Benoit, Oliver
(2026)
"Reflection on Liah Greenfeld’s Influence on My Work: National Consciousness and the Sociological Imagination,"
Comparative Civilizations Review: Vol. 95:
No.
95, Article 17.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol95/iss95/17
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