Nationalism Near and Far

Dissent has always taken pride in its openness to a range of democratic and egalitarian ideas, its refusal to impose a “party line.” This makes for bracing intellectual exercise, as one follows the converging and colliding trajectories of its editors’ ideas in the pages of the magazine.

In the Winter 1996 issue, for example, we find Michael Walzer deploring the widespread and uncritical support of October’s Million Man March of black Americans on Washin...