The early twenty-first century was an optimistic moment of global futures-making. The old 'third-world' nations were rapidly embracing the script of unbridled capitalism in the hope of arriving on the world stage.

Brand New Nation reveals the on-the-ground experience of the relentless transformation of the nation-state into an attractive investment destination for global capital. The infusion of capital not only rejuvenates the nation, it also produces investment-fuelled nationalism, a populist energy that can be turned into a powerful instrument of coercion.

Grounded in the history of modern India, the book reveals how the forces of identity economy, identity politics, publicity, populism, violence and economic growth are rapidly rearranging the liberal political order the world over.

Ravinder Kaur is Associate Professor of Modern South Asian Studies, University of Copenhagen where she also directs the Centre of Global South Asian Studies.

Her core research focuses on the processes of capitalist transformations in twenty-first-century India. This is the subject of her most recent book Brand New Nation: Capitalist Dreams and Nationalist Designs in Twenty-First-Century India (2020). Tracing the long history of the economic reforms, the book delves into the yet ongoing transformation of the postcolonial nation into an ‘attractive investment destination’, and the attendant rise of investment-fuelled cultural nationalism. Her previous research focused on the questions of forced migration, refugee resettlement, social class and caste and the making of modern