What Gordon in The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction and Zahra in Kidnapped Souls approach is the question of how nationalism affects the rights of individuals. They show how racial, ideological, and various class-based forms of nationalism in part hold power based on their ability to exclude and limit the rights of members or the binary other. This would seem rudimentary, obvious, and rather unoriginal, but the conflicting class origins of nationalism that become apparent, especially when these two books are compared to each other, makes it a novel approach to nationalism. Contrary to what some may think nationalism and nation building is not confined to the elite level and ethnic binaries are created not natural. Gordon shows it on the local
