Gellner, Ernest. Language and Solitude: Wittgenstein, Malinowski, and the Habsburg dilemma. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Modernity and nationalism are intrinsically linked. This verdict is shared by most scholars of nationalism, and even ‘anti-modernists’ subscribe at least partially to this view – although they prefer to focus on the doctrine's more ancient roots. But perhaps none better than Ernest Gellner (1925–95) has expressed this relationship with such a sharp rigour. For Gellner describes with powerful metaphors and ‘mathematic’ lucidity the emergence of nationalism following the shift from agricultural to industrial society. During this passage, the basis and legitimation of the social order mutuated from religious-theocratic to scientific-secularist forms.