building, nationalism and the construction of national identity there.  His 2013 book on the topic is entitled One People, One Nation: Brazilian Identity in the Twentieth Century. Professor Eakin is visiting the University of Melbourne to speak at the 2012 Melbourne Latin America Dialogue.Marshall Eakin, thank you for joining us on Up Close. MARSHALL EAKIN I'm glad to be here. ERIC VAN BEMMEL Now Marshall, there are states that emerge before the creation of a nation, and I'm thinking here of ex-colonial, multi-ethnic states like Brazil or South Africa.  And there are those nations that emerge before the creation of a state, old world, largely ethnically cohesive nations like Japan.  How does national identity fit in here? MARSHALL EAKIN Well essentially what's going on is, in the modern world, post, say, 1750, post-French Revolution in the late eighteenth century, all states attempt to create some sort of sense of national identity.  Essentially, their ultimate goal which is unachievable is complete homogeneity.  So in this sense, the ultimate objective is everyone shares the same sort of values, beliefs, religion.  So if you look at the study of national identity, especially out of Europe which has dominated the discussion, they tend to focus on what's usually called primordial ethnicity, primordial identity, so the Armenians or the Germans or the Slavs.So in those older studies, early twentieth century, mid-twentieth century of national identity, they tended to focus much more on ethnicity, they could trace back for a century if not millennia.  Whereas what