Take the ancient Phoenicians, enlisted in support of the nationalist histories of Lebanon, Britain and Ireland, and in some cases seriously distorted by them. Despite claims by various partisans of Lebanese, British and Irish nationalism to enlist the Phoenicians as their ancient progenitor, the Phoenicians never existed as a self-conscious community, let alone a nascent nation.A full account of the little-remembered contribution of pseudo-scholarship on the Phoenicians to early British and Irish nationalisms. Along the way, Professor Quinn argues, the concept of nationalism was applied retroactively to the Phoenicians.
Professor Quinn is the author of the recent book In Search of the Phoenicians. There's more on it here and links.
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