Exiled Among Nations
German and Mennonite Mythologies in a Transnational Age

Explores how religious migrants engage with the phenomenon of nationalism, through two groups of German-speaking Mennonites.

John P. R. Eicher (Author)

9781108486118, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 January 2020

356 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.1 cm, 0.7 kg

'… offers a useful vantage point from which to track the effects of modern nationalism, displacement, and racialization on minority populations … This excellent work deserves a wide readership.' David Y. Neufeld, The Conrad Grebel Review

How do groups of people fashion shared identities in the modern world? Following two communities of German-speaking Mennonites, one composed of voluntary migrants and the other of refugees, across four continents between 1870 and 1945, this transnational study explores how religious migrants engaged with the phenomenon of nationalism. John P. R. Eicher demonstrates how migrant groups harnessed the global spread of nationalism to secure practical objectives and create local mythologies. In doing so, he also reveals how governments and aid organizations used diasporic groups for their own purposes - and portraying such nomads as enemies or heroes in national and religious mythologies. By underscoring the importance of local and religious counter-stories that run in parallel to nationalist narratives, Exiled Among Nations helps us understand acts of resistance, flight, and diaspora in the modern world.

Introduction
1. No lasting city (1870–1930)
2. A sort of homecoming (1929–1931)
3. Troubled tribes in the promised land (1930–1939)
4. Mennonite (di)visions (1930–1939)
5. Peanuts for the Führer (1933–1939)
6. Centrifugal fantasies, centripetal realities (1939–1945)
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Political control & freedoms [JPV], Religious & theocratic ideologies [JPFR], Nationalism [JPFN], History of the Americas [HBJK], General & world history [HBG]