Hans Kohn (Hebrew: הַנְס כֹּהן, or קוהן, September 15, 1891 – March 16, 1971) was an American philosopher and historian. He pioneered the academic study of nationalism, and is considered an authority on the subject.[1]
Shortly after graduation, in late 1914 Kohn was called into the infantry of the Austro-Hungarian Army. Following training he was sent to the Eastern Front in the Carpathian Mountains, facing the Imperial Russian Army. He was captured in 1915 and taken by the Russians to a prison camp in Central Asia (in present-day Turkmenistan). During the civil war following the Bolshevik revolution, the pro-western Czechoslovak Legions came into Central Asia and he was set free. With them he traveled further east (called by Czechs the "Siberian Anabasis"), until stopping at Irkutsk. The political situation then allowed him to return to Europe, arriving in 1920.
Kohn then lived in Paris, where he married Jetty Wahl in 1921.
The couple moved to London, where Kohn worked for Zionist organizations and wrote articles for newspapers. He moved to Palestine in 1925. From there he would frequently visit the United States. His writings began to generate books, where he discussed current geopolitics and nationalism. In 1929, he wrote a resignation letter from Keren HaYesod titled "Judaism is Not Zionism".[2][3] Eventually the couple immigrated to America in 1934.
In 1944, he published his major work, The Idea of Nationalism, on the dichotomy between western and eastern Nationalism. Kohn sought to understand the emergence of nationalism through the development of western civilization and the rise of liberalism.[6] He also published a biography of Martin Buber. His autobiography, published in 1964, includes reflections on his times and his personal life.
^Zohar Maor (2010). "Hans Kohn and the Dialectics of Colonialism: Insights on Nationalism and Colonialism from Within". Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook. 55 (1): 255–271. doi:10.1093/lbyb/ybq038.
Gordon, Adi. Towards Nationalism's End: An Intellectual Biography of Hans Kohn, Brandeis (2017).
Gordon, Adi. "The Need for West: Hans Kohn and the North Atlantic Community." Journal of Contemporary History 46#1 (2011): 33–57.
Kohn, Hans. Living in a World Revolution: My Encounters with History (1964), Autobiography, a primary source.
Liebich, Andre. "Searching for the perfect nation: the itinerary of Hans Kohn (1891–1971)." Nations and Nationalism 12.4 (2006): 579–596.
Maor, Zohar. "Hans Kohn and the Dialectics of Colonialism: Insights on Nationalism and Colonialism from Within". Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 55 (1): 255–271. doi:10.1093/lbyb/ybq038.
Wolf, Ken. "Hans Kohn's liberal nationalism: the historian as prophet." Journal of the History of Ideas 37, n. 4 (1976): 651–672. in JSTOR