Tagore was a fierce opponent of British rule in India. In this work he discusses the resurgence of the East and the challenge it poses to Western supremacy, calling for a future beyond nationalism, based instead on cooperation and racial tolerance. Tagore totally rejected nationalism as it is understood in the Western sense of the term. First published in 1917, split into three themes; Nationalism in the West, in Japan, and in India. The essays were written when the world was at war, and is ever present in the background of the essays as proof of the self-destructive tendency of the organised modern nation. The book finishes with a poem written on the last day of the 19th CenturySunset of the Century.