He graduated with an MA in modern history from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland in 1970; and his PhD in sociology in 1985 from the London School of Economics, where he was supervised by Anthony D.
He is a leading scholar of the ethnosymbolist school (established by Smith) that highlights the role of embedded historical memories in the formation of modern nations.
He explains how cultural nationalists act as moral innovators, emerging at times of crisis, to form movements that offer new maps of identity based on historical myths, that in turn may inspire programmes of socio-political regeneration.
He emphasises the dynamic role of historians and artists, showing how they interact with religious reformists and a discontented modernising intelligentsia to form national identities.
Such conflicts serve to "fill out" national identities and they give rise to alternative cultural and political visions that offer options to populations at times of crisis.