Beyond Southeast Asia, this revisionist account suggests the illuminative power of a comparative historical sociology of nationalism attentive to patterns of state- and identity-formation, and to the broader international economic and political context within which new nation-states are enfolded. As the differences between various Mainland and Island Southeast Asian countries have suggested, and as scholars working on other regions of the world have also shown, the underlying logics of nationalism may exhibit profound differences, differences prefigured by diverging patterns in the formation of states rather than varying “national characters” or ethnic constellations. While Geertz emphasized and perhaps exaggerated the challenges of managing cultural diversity and the existential problems inherent in “nation-building” in the new states of post-independence Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, this essay has offered a reminder of the importance of state institutions, economic power, and international relations in shaping the fate of nationalism across the postcolonial world.