What is nationalism?

I was asked this question at my interview. Applicants for history at Cambridge will usually be asked to submit a couple of written essays which, in conjunction with the personal statement, will be used as prompts for conceptual questions such as this. Thankfully, candidates need not be worried about being asked 'historical' questions in terms of specific historical facts. This sort of question is rather challenging the candidate to draw on fragmented pieces of evidence from their historical, and even current affairs knowledge. It is a test in expressing a coherent answer about an historiographical abstraction.Candidates could best start with a surface definition of nationalism - a feeling of identification with a nation. The best candidates however will dissect this into its component parts. What, for example, is a nation? A popular sociological definition is the one outlined in Benedict Anderson's 'Imagined Communities', which demonstrates that national communities are often linked by a shared interpretation of a common history. One could also discuss the notion of the 'nation-state' and its alternatives: does nationalism require a common political structure? One could argue that modern India was formed on the basis of a common Indian nationalism as articulated by Gandhi. But there are other forms of nationalism, such as Kurdish nationalism, which have no recognised state to affiliate with. Candidates could also probe the notion of 'identification'. What causes people to identify with a nation? Here we could look into how historical narratives are manipulated to serve this purpose. Take, for example, Afrikaner nationalism in early 20th-century South Africa. The Afrikaners were often expressed as 'God's elect' by prominent nationalists like D.F. Malan. Identification is also based on the expression of 'inside' and 'outside' groups. In the case of the Afrikaners, a specific definition of the South African nation excluded black Africans, and marginalised white British settlers.