Drawing on a wide range of examples, the selections included examine theories of nationalism and consider issues of ethnic integration and conflict in the USA, Middle East, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Quebec and Catalonia among other countries and regions. The concept of ethnicity, however, is discussed not only in relation to group rights in existing nation-states: many of the selections deal with the role of ethnicity in groups which are not nationalist at all but for which ethnicity is an important factor in the process of migration, extending the focus to transnational communities in a globalized world.

Contributors include Benedict Anderson, Etienne Balibar, James Clifford, Eric Hobsbawm, Michael Keating, Will Kymlicka, Tariq Modood, John Rex, Anthony D. Smith, Michel Wieviorka, and Franke Wilmer.