Over more than 40 years of scholarly writing, Liah Greenfeld has advanced hypotheses and highlighted facts that describe and explain many aspects of living in modern times, as well as a general framework for understanding humans, their needs and motivations, and the societies they form.
Here is a selection of articles and online posts (for Psychology Today and her Unguarded Thoughts Substack), representing the wide range of topics she has researched and analyzed, followed by a list of all of Greenfeld’s published articles.
The world we live in
“When the Sky is the Limit: Busyness in Contemporary American Society,” 2005
“Nationalism and COVID-19,” 2020
“The World Nationalism Made,” 2018
“Modern Emotions : Love,” 2013
Politics
“Nationalism and Protest,” 2021
“Left, Right, and Nationalism,” 2017
“Democracy Confusion,” 2025
“Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism,” 2025
Economics
“Nationalism’s Dividends,” 2019
“Capitalism: Temporary Victim of the Financial Crisis,” 2012
Globalization of Nationalism
“Nationalism,” 2011
Antisemitism
“A New Explanation of Antisemitism: Jew Hatred as a Civilisational Phenomenon,” 2024
“Twelve Theses on Antisemitism,” 2025
Civilizations
“The Rise of China and the Concept of Civilization: Constructing Conceptual Apparatus for Cross-Civilizational Comparisons,” 2024
“Towards the Systematic Cross-Civilizational Comparison: How Civilizations Work – Case 1: The Monotheistic Civilization,” 2025
“Clash of Civilizations? Cultures? Nations?” 2025
Mental Illness
“The West’s Struggle for Mental Health,” 2022
“To Combat Terrorism, Tackle Mental Illness,” 2016
Mind/Human Nature
“The Mind As Culture in the Brain,” 2013
“Approaching Human Nature – and Needs – Empirically,” 2017
Social Science
“Praxis Pietatis: A Tribute to Edward Shils,” 1996
Social Science from the Turn of the 20th Century, 2020
“Modern Social Science Deeply Indebted to Darwin,” 2015
“Nationalism and Modern Economy: Communing with the Spirit of Max Weber,” 2005
“Reflections on Durkheim in Hong Kong,” 2018
The Science of Humanity
“Outline of a Future Science of Humanity,” 2020
Published Articles
2026
“Nationalism and Political Modernity,” in Cesari, J. (ed.) Religion, Politics, and Nation, Wiley Blackwell Companions in Politics and Political Science.
2025
“Towards Systematic Cross-Civilizational Comparison: How Civilizations Work, Part I, The Monotheistic Civilization,” Comparative Civilizations Review, Fall, pp. 176-207.
“How the ‘Social Sciences’ Killed Our Universities” (Original title “The Academic Question: Could American Research Universities Be Reformed and Should They Be?”), Academic Questions.
2024
“A New Explanation of Antisemitism: Jew Hatred as a Civilizational Phenomenon,” Israel Affairs, vol. 30:4, August, pp 579-599.
“The Rise of China and the Concept of Civilization: Constructing Conceptual Apparatus for Cross-civilizational Comparisons,” Lead Essay, Comparative Civilizations Review, Spring, pp. 5-38.
2023
Epilogue to the Turkish edition of The Spirit of Capitalism.
Preface to the Chinese edition of Mind, Modernity, Madness.
2022
“The West’s Struggle for Mental Health,” The Wall Street Journal, May 31.
“Cross-civilizational Comparison between China and the West as the Foundation for Geo-Political Analysis: Premises and Hypotheses,” paper commissioned by the Office of Net Assessment.
“Does the Mind of a Genius Follow Different Stages of Development? Granite of Science, January (in Russian).
2021
“Old Testament and Nationalism: Hebrew Bible, Jewish People, English Nation,” Journal of the Bible and Its Reception, October, pp. 1-12.
“ALIÉNATION MENTALE” and ALIENATION in Marxism: Could Mental Illness Be the Inspiration behind Karl Marx’s Project? Dogma, Revue de Philosophie et de Sciences Humaines, Printemps 2021, pp. 65-73.
“Nationalism and Protest,” lead article in “The Revolution Will Be Televised: A Decade of Global Protest,” The SAIS Review of International Affairs, 40:2, pp. 5-15.w, Spring, pp. 5-38.
2020
Commissioned contribution of a major update to Encyclopedia Britannica’s article on Social Science: “Social Science: History, Disciplines, and Facts,” including two new sections: “Social Science Since the Turn of the 20th Century” and “Outline of a Future Science of Humanity.”
“Introduction” to the Research Handbook on Nationalism, pp. 1-22.
“Nationalism and COVID-19,” Nations and Nationalism, July 2020.
“Nationalism: The Modern Motive-Force,” in The New Handbook of Political Sociology, Cambridge University Press (with Zeying Wu).
Preface to the Japanese edition of Advanced Introduction to Nationalism.
2019
“Nationalism’s Dividends,” American Affairs, 3:2, pp. 103-116.
2018
“The World Nationalism Made,” American Affairs, 2:4, pp. 145-159.
“Reflections on Durkheim in Hong Kong,” Dogma : Édition Printemps-Été.
Review of A Singular Case: Debating China’s Political Economy in the European Enlightenment by Ashley Eva Millar, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 49:1, pp. 45-46.
2017
“Left and Right around (and within) Nationalism” H-Nationalism (online).
“Revolutions,” The Sage Handbook of Political Sociology, ch. 38, pp. 685-698.
“Approaching Human Nature – and Needs – Empirically,” Society, 54(6).
Preface to the Turkish edition of Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity.
“The Life of the Mind of Hannah Arendt,” in Peter Baehr and Philip Walsh (eds.), Anthem Companion to Hannah Arendt, London: Anthem Press, pp. 129-154.
2016
“Back to 1984: The Role of American Universities in Dismantling Liberal Democracy,” Society, 53(4), 368-374.
“Addressing Public Justification as an Empirical Phenomenon: A Caveat,” Contemporary Politics 22(2).
“To Combat Terrorism, Tackle Mental Illness,” New York Times, July 15
2015
“In Defense of Sociological Mentalism,” The European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, 2:1 (Fall), pp. 76-87.
“Using the Holocaust,” Library of Social Science, February.
Review of Mercantilism Reimagined: Political Economy in Early Modern Britain and Its Empire, P.J. Stern and C. Wennerlind (eds.), Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XLV:3 (Winter).
“Modern social science deeply indebted to Darwin,” South China Morning Post, June 7.
2014
“Science as a Measure of Nations’ IQ,” Actes of Rencontres economiques d’Aix-en-Provence, 2014
“Computers vs. Humanity: Do We Compete?” (with Mark Simes), Ubiquity: A Publication of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Ubiquity Symposium on Singularity (Espen Andersen, ed.), November, Pages 1-7.
“Edward Shils on Ethnicity and Nationalism,” in John Stone (ed.), Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism, Wiley/Blackwell.
2012
“E pluribus unum: L’emergence d’un mal-etre moderne et des mots pour le dire,” in P. Goetschel, C. Granger, N. Richard & S. Venayre (eds.), L’Ennui. Histoire d’un état d’âme (XIXe-XXe siècles), Paris, Publication de la Sorbonne.
“Nation-State” (with Katrina Demulling), in Helmut K. Anheier, Mark Juergensmeyer and Victor Faessel (eds.), Encyclopedia of Global Studies, Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 1218-22.
“American Universities and the Stagnation of Knowledge,” in Liah Greenfeld (ed.), The Idea(l)s of Joseph Ben-David: The Scientist’s Role and Centers of Learning Revisited, Transaction Publishers.
“Capitalism: Neither Problem Nor Solution—But Temporary Victim of the Financial Crisis,” in Roger Berkowitz and Taun N. Toay (eds.), The Intellectual Origins of the Global Financial Crisis, Oxford Academic.
“Nationalism,” in George Ritzer (ed.), The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization, pp. 1498-1502.
2011
“The Reality of American Multiculturalism: American Nationalism at Work,” in Alain-G. Gagnon, Lecours, A. and Nootens, G. (eds.), Contemporary Majority Nationalism, Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, pp. 181-196.
“National Leadership in Science and Technology,” SAGE/National Science Foundation, Leadership in Science and Technology.
“Globalization of Nationalism and the Future of the Nation-State,” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Winter 2011.
“On Raymond Aron, Passion, Identity, and Intricate Ways of Intellectual Filiation,” Journal of Classical Sociology, vol. 11:2, May, pp. 123-138.
2010
“Nationalism as the Cultural Foundation of Modern Experience” (with Eric Malczewski), The Handbook of Cultural Sociology, NY: Routledge, pp. 526-534.
“The Formation of Ethnic and National Identities” (with Nicholas Prevelakis), The International Studies Encyclopedia, 4: 2516-2531, Wiley-Blackwell.
New Preface for the Chinese translation of Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity, Shanghai: People’s Press, pp. v-x.
2009
“Politics as a Cultural Phenomenon” (with Eric Malczewski), in J. Craig Jenkins & Kevin T. Leicht (eds.), The Handbook of Politics: State and Society in Global Perspective, Springer, pp. 407-422.
“The Burden of Our Time,” Newsletter of the ASA Mental Health Section, December.
Review of Pamela Dale and Joseph Melling (eds.), Mental Illness and Learning Disability Since 1850, Journal of the History of Medicine and Related Sciences.
2008
“The Alternatives: Other Institutional & Procedural Tools for Conflict Management (The Case of the USA)”, pp. 171 – 186 in Thomas Fleiner (ed.), Federalism: A Tool for Conflict Management in Multicultural Societies with Regard to the Conflicts in the Near East, Zurich: Lit Verlag.
“Capitalism,” pp. 24-29, Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World: Oxford University Press.
“National Identity,” (with Jonathan Eastwood), chapter 11, pp. 256 – 274, Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
“The Class Nature of Nationalism, 1770-1870,” (with Jonathan Eastwood), Guntram Herb and D.H. Kaplan (eds.), volume 1, chapter 1, Nations and Nationalism in Global Perspective: An Encyclopedia of Origins, Development, and Contemporary Transition, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC Clio.
“Globalization of Nationalism,” The Future of National Identity, Vancouver: UBC Press, pp. 93—109.
2007
“La realite du multiculturalisme etats-unien: le nationalisme etats-unien a l’oeuvre,” ch. 7 (pp. 271-290) in Alain-G. Gagnon, Andre Lecours et Genevieve Nootens (eds.), Les Nationalismes majoritaires contemporains: identite, memoire, pouvoir, Montreal: Quebec-Amerique.
“’Main Currents’ and Sociological Thought,” Brian-Paul Frost and Daniel J. Mahoney (eds.), Political Reason in the Age of Ideology: Essays in Honor of Raymond Aron, New Brunswick: Transaction.
“Nazionalism i razum,” (Nationalism and the Mind), V. Tishkov and V. Shnirelman, Russian Academy of Sciences (eds.), Nazionalism v mirovoi istorii, Moscow: Nauka, pp. 105-122.
2006
“Razmyshlenia ob intelligentsii v postsovetskoi Rossii (Thoughts about the Intelligentsia in Post-Soviet Russia)” Vremia Iskat’: a journal of socio-political thought, history, and culture, v. 13, pp. 44-55.
“Modernity and Nationalism,” G. Delanty and K. Kumar (eds.), The Sage Handbook of Nations and Nationalism, Oxford University Press.
“Nationalism and Modern Economy: Communing with the Spirit of Max Weber,” Max Weber Studies. Vol. 5.2/6.1 (July 2005/January 2006), pp. 317-343
“Nacionalismo y economia moderna: Conversando con el espiritu de Max Weber,” Javier Rodriguez (ed.) En el centenario de La etica protestante y el espiritu del capitalismo, Madrid: CIS, pp. 177-201
2005
“The Trouble with Social Science: a propos Some New Work on Nationalism,” Critical Review, 17:1-2, pp. 101-116.
“Nationalism and Economic Growth,” Milan Zafirowsky (ed.), International Encyclopedia of Economic Sociology, Routledge.
“When the Sky is the Limit: Busyness in Contemporary American Society,” Social Research, v. 72:2 (Summer), pp. 1-24.
“Nationalism and the Mind,” Nations and Nationalism, 11:4, pp. 325-341.
“For Dan Bell,” in Mark Lilla and Wieseltier, L. (eds.), For Daniel Bell, Chicago, pp. 45-54.
2004
“Speaking Historically about Globalization and other Fictions,” Historically Speaking, 5:3 (January).
“Is Modernity Possible without Nationalism?” in Michel Seymour (ed.), The Fate of the Nation-State, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, pp. 31-51.
“A New Paradigm for the Social Sciences?” Critical Review, 16:2-3, pp. 288-322.
“Nationalism in Comparative Perspective,” (with Jonathan Eastwood), Cambridge Handbook of Political Sociology, pp. 247-265.
2003
“Friedrich List,” Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History.
Review of Alice Taichova et al (eds.), Economic Change and the National Question in Twentieth-Century Europe, Journal of Economic History, March.
2002
“La modernite est-elle possible sans le nationalisme?” in Michel Seymour (ed.), Etats-nations, multinations et organisations supranationales, Montreal: Liber, pp. 65-77.
“The Parochialism of ‘Globalization'”, Partisan Review, LXIX:4, Fall, pp. 643-652
2001
“How Economics Became a Science: A Surprising Career of a Model Discipline,” in Amanda Anderson and J. Valente (eds.), Disciplinarity at the Fin de Siecle, Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 87-125
2000
“Etymology, Definitions, Types,” lead theoretical essay, Encyclopedia of Nationalism, v. 1, pp. 251-265.
“Western Europe,” Encyclopedia of Nationalism, v. 1, pp. 883-898
Review of Vladimir Tismanianu, Fantasies of Salvation: Democracy, Nationalism, and Myth in Post-Communist Europe, Slavic Review, 59:3, pp. 642-3
“Democracy, Ethnic Diversity, and Nationalism,” Proceedings of the Nobel Symposium, UCL Press, pp. 25-36.
1999
“Is Nation Unavoidable? Is Nation Unavoidable Today?” in Hanspeter Kriese et al. (eds.), Nation and National Identity: The European Experience in Perspective, Zurich: Verlag Ruegger, pp. 37-55.
“The Closing of the Russian Mind,” The New Republic, February 5.
“Non-partisan reflections on the president’s affair,” Society, 36, pp.18–21.
1998
“Is Nationalism Legitimate? A Sociological Perspective on a Philosophical Question,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 22, pp. 93-108.
1997
“Metodologies en l’estudi del nacionalisme,” (tr. Esther Sala Miralles), in Nacionalismes i ciencies socials, Editorial Mediterrania, pp. 239-248.
“The Origins and Nature of American Nationalism in Comparative Perspective,” in Knud Krakau (ed.), The American Nation — National Identity — Nationalism, Berlin: JFK-Institut fuer Nordamerikastudien, Freie Universtaet, pp. 19-53.
“The Nature of the Beast,” National Interest, Summer.
Review of Wiliam Gay and Alekseeva, T.A., Capitalism with a Human Face: The Quest for a Middle Road in Russian Politics by, Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, July.
“The Birth of Economic Competitiveness,” Critical Review, 10:3, pp. 409-470.
“The Political Significance of Culture,” The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Winter/Spring, pp. 187-195
1996
“Foreword” to Europe from the Balkans to the Urals by Reneo Lukic and Allen Lynch, Oxford University Press, pp. x-xiv.
“The Modern Religion?” Critical Review, v. 10:2, Spring, pp. 169-191.
Review of Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era by Anthony D. Smith, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 19:3.
“War and Ethnic Identity in Eastern Europe,” in Thomas Cushman and S. Mestrovic (eds.), This Time We Knew: Western Responses to Genocide in Bosnia, New York University Press.
“The Bitter Taste of Success: Reflections on the Intelligentsia in Post-Soviet Russia,” Social Research, v. 63:2, Summer, pp. 417-438.
Review of J. R. Llobera, The God of Modernity, Contemporary Sociology, May.
“Nationalism and Modernity,” Social Research, 62:4, Winter
“Praxis Pietatis: A Tribute to Edward Shils,” American Sociologist, vol. 27:4, pp. 66-81.
1995
“The Worth of Nations: Some Economic Implications of Nationalism,” Critical Review, 9:4, Fall, pp. 555-584.
“Nationalism in Western and Eastern Europe Compared,” in Stephen Hanson and W. Spohn (eds.), Can Europe Work? Germany and the Reconstruction of Postcommunist Societies, University of Washington Press, pp. 15-24.
Review of John Efron, Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors and Race Science in Fin-de-Siecle Europe, Society, November-December 1995, pp. 54-58.
“Russian Nationalism as a Medium of Revolution: An Exercise in Historical Sociology,” Qualitative Sociology, 18:2, pp. 189-209.
“Types of European Nationalism,” in Anthony Smith and J. Hutchinson (eds.), Nationalism: An Oxford Reader, Oxford University Press.
“The Intellectual as Nationalist,” Civilization, v. 2:1, pp. 25-27, March-April.
1994
“Teaching Nationalism,” Perspectives of the American Historical Association, November.
“Yael Tamir’s ‘Liberal Nationalism’,” American Political Science Review, June.
“Living History,” Bostonia, Summer, pp. 33-39.
“What’s in a Name? William Pfaff’s ‘Wrath of Nations’,” The National Review, pp. 67-8, May 18.
“Nationalism and Language,” Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, v. 5, pp. 2708-2713.
“Nationalism and Aggression,” (with Daniel Chirot) Theory and Society, v. 23:1, pp 79-130, February.
“Zeev Sternhell’s ‘Birth of Fascist Ideology’,” The Washington Times, March 27, p. B9.
1993
“Jacob Talmon’s ‘Myth of the Nation and Vision of Revolution: Ideological Polarization in the Twentieth Century’,” History and Theory, 32:3, pp. 339-349.
“The Crisis of the Aristocracy and the Emergence of Russian National Identity,” Ethnic Studies, 10, pp. 125-145.
“What’s So Great About Freedom? Anatol Lieven’s ‘Baltic Revolution’,” The New York Times Book Review, August 29, p. 6.
“Transcending the Nation’s Worth,” Daedalus, v. 122:3, pp. 47-62. Also in The Worth of Nations collection of the Boston, Melbourne, Oxford Conversazioni on Culture and Society, Boston University.
“Nationalism and Democracy: The Nature of the Relationship and the Cases of England, France, and Russia,” Research in Democracy and Society, v. 1, pp. 327-352.
1992
“Kitchen Debate: Russia’s anti-democratic intellectuals,” The New Republic, September.
1991
“The Purposeful Science of Soviet Sociology: Will It Become a Profession?” in T. A. Jones (ed.), Professions and the State in Socialist Societies, Temple University Press, pp. 119-51.
“The Emergence of Nationalism in England and France: A Study in the Sociology of National Identity,” in Research in Political Sociology, JAI Press, v. 5, pp. 333-370.
“Nacionalizem in razredni boj: dve sili ali ena?” in R. Rizman (ed.) Studije o etnonacionalizmu, Ljubljana: Knjiznaca revolucionarne teorije (translation into Slovenian of “Nationalism and Class Struggle: Two Forces or One?”)
1990
“The Formation of Russian National Identity: The Role of Status Insecurity and Ressentiment,” Comparative Studies of Society and History, v. 32:3, July, pp. 549-591 (Short version published in Diasporas, pp. 47-50, Moscow, 1994).
“The Closing of the Russian Mind: Review of Russophobia by Igor’ Shafarevich,” New Republic, February.
1989
“The Analysis of Membership Survey of the Culture Section of the American Sociological Association,” Culture Section Newsletter, December.
Review of Peter J. Hugill and D. Bruce Dickson (eds.), The Transfer and Transformation of Ideas and Material Culture, Contemporary Sociology, 18:5 (September), pp. 700-701.
“Reflections of a Bourgeois Menshevik: An Interview with Daniel Bell” in Transaction/SOCIETY, v. 26, no.6, September/October.
1988
“Soviet Sociology and Sociology in the Soviet Union,” Annual Reviews of Sociology, 14, pp. 99-123.
“Nationalism in Pre-Revolutionary France: A Missing Dimension in de Tocqueville’s `The Old Regime and the French Revolution’,” Working Paper Series of the Center for Research on Politics and Social Organization, July.
“Professional Ideologies and Patterns of ‘Gatekeeping’: Evaluation and Judgment within Two Art Worlds,” Social Forces, 66:4, June, pp. 903-25.
1987
Review of New Nationalisms of the Developed West, E.A. Tiryakian and R. Rogowski (eds.), and K. O’Sullivan See, First World Nationalisms, Social Forces, December.
“Science and National Greatness in 17th Century England,” Minerva, XXV:1-2 Spring-Summer, pp. 107-22.
“Russian Formalist Sociology of Literature: A Sociologist’s Perspective,” Slavic Review, 46:1, Spring, pp. 38-54.
1986
Review of Jeffrey Brooks, When Russia Learned to Read, Contemporary Sociology, 15:5, September, pp. 744-45.
“Nationalism and Class Struggle: Two Forces or One?” Survey: A Journal of East and West Studies, 29:3, Autumn, pp.153-74.
Review of Remi Clignet, The Structure of Artistic Revolutions, Contemporary Sociology, 15:4, July, pp. 273-75.
1985
“Israeli Artists and Innovation: The Social Structure of Innovation in Pure Art,” Sociologia Internationalis, 23:1, pp. 27-41.
“Reflections on Two Charismas,” The British Journal of Sociology, XXXVI:1 (March), pp. 117-32.
1984
“The Role of the Public in the Success of Artistic Styles,” The European Journal of Sociology, XXV:1, pp. 83-98.
1982
“The Artist as a Spiritual Leader,” in E. Balfer (ed.), The Jewish Spiritual Leadership in Our Time, Bar-Ilan University Press, pp. 222-36 (in Hebrew).
1981
“The Social Context of Artistic Style: Impressionism in France and Critical Realism in Russia,” in R.A. Jones and H. Kuklick (eds.), Knowledge and Society: Studies in the Sociology of Culture Past and Present, 3, JAI Press, pp. 217-55.