Writing National Histories

About this book

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 agianst socialist communist and catholic internationalism in the modern era. 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.