Overview

This book examines comparatively how the writing of history by individuals and groups, historians, politicians and journalists has been used to "legitimate" the nation-state against socialist, communist and catholic internationalism in the modern era.

Coverage

Covering the whole of Western Europe, the book includes discussion of:

• history as legitimation in post-revolutionary France
• unity and confederation in the Italian Risorgimento
• German historians as critics of Prussian conservatism
• right-wing history writing in France between the wars
• British historiography from Macauley to Trevelyan
• the search for national identity in the reunified Germany