Tom Nairn, as painted by Sandy Moffat for Democratic Left Scotland
Tom Nairn’s influence on our understanding of nationalism is widely recognised. What is too little known is the intellectual journey that led him to be one of the few thinkers on the left to take nationalism seriously as the modern Janus, a progressive as well as regressive force. In this interview, conducted in April 2015, Nairn charts the unplanned course of his thinking from art school to aesthetics, philosophy to politics, nationalism studies to the study of globalisation, Benedetto Croce to Iris Murdoch, Antonio Gramsci to Hamish Henderson, Perry Anderson to the New Left Review. Such interests and friendships took him from Pisa to Hornsey, Amsterdam to Melbourne; yet always circling back north again. His wanderings across Europe and the globe have enabled him to see Scotland like no other observer, offering home thoughts from abroad in his inimitable prose.
WS Will Storrar, Visiting Professor, Glasgow Caledonian University, and organiser of the Bus Party, a touring group of artists led by Neal Ascherson, fostering civic dialogue during the Scottish independence referendum 2014
