Abstract: When the modern nation was first born in Britain,it was a civic nation defined by the territory of the Kingdom.With the mainstreaming of nationalism in the late nineteenth century,the ethnic nation and the “nation state” have long been regarded as typical forms of nation and modern state.Some scholars regard nationalism as the “political shame” of the 20th-century.Nevertheless,as long as the state exists,human society cannot circumvent the ideology of civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism.What can be done only is to pull ourselves away from both of these radical forms of nationalism and accept the coexistence of moderate civic nation and moderate ethnic nation in the real socio-political world.