A definitional antithesis" does exist but this should not lead, as it has done in literature, to the "set of analytical cliches" of which it does1 denying ??civic?? nations of ethnic virtues and denying those nations categorised as ??ethnic?? of ??civic?? virtues.2 According to modernists (with the exception of Benedict Anderson), Britain and France, as the first examples of modern nation-states