H astings, A drian (1929–2001)

Only in his last years did the scholar of Christian history Adrian Hastings turn his attention to questions about nationalism. His major work, The Construction of Nationhood (1997), attacked the idea that nations were modern, arguing that many nations in Europe, starting with the English and Irish, could be traced to the early Middle Ages. A nation for Hastings was an ethnic group that had its own literary language, and it was Christianity, not modernization, that, by sanctioning vernacular languages, had encouraged and shaped the growth of nations. Hastings is also perhaps too ready to accept the continuity of medieval with modern nations, ignoring the many political disruptions in the historical record. Despite these criticisms, Hastings's emphasis on the dynamic bond of religion and his refusal to accept the dominant modernist orthodoxy have rendered an invaluable service to the continuing debates on the nature and antiquity of nations and nationalism.