In reaction to the centralizing nation-building efforts of states in nineteenth-century Europe, many regions began to define their own identity. In thirteen stimulating essays, specialists analyze why regional identities became widely celebrated towards the end of that century and why some considered themselves part of the new national self-image.
In reaction to the centralizing nation-building efforts of states in nineteenth-century Europe, many regions began to define their own identity. In thirteen stimulating essays, specialists analyze why regional identities became widely celebrated towards the end of that century and why some considered themselves part of the new national self-image.
This volume describes real and mental regions as the historical undertone that destined a changing Europe during the last millennium. Over the centuries, historiography - in many different forms - became an important vehicle by which to create, articulate, and express the existence, awareness, and characteristics of Europe's regions. Be it the histories of noble families that were important stakeholders in a region, urban histories describing the developing urban networks through which regions could function, dynastic histories emphasizing the relationship between ruler and region, or hagiographies describing holy men and women and their veneration as focal points within regions - all of them represented and reflected identities within an understood spatial and or mental sphere. Historiography can therefore help us to understand the way in which regions were seen from within and from without, and to understand the patterns and dynamics of regional cohesion. Moreover, it sheds light on the dialectic between nation and region, and on the relationship between the regional sphere and the wider (inter)national sphere. The authors of this volume look at individual European regions from different points of view, using historiography as a lens. They analyse the ways in which history as a construct has played a role in establishing regional identity, providing examples of the ways in which recording, interpreting, and recounting the history of regions through the ages has been instrumental in shaping these regions. The first section of the volume explores regional identity in medieval and early modern historiography; the second shows how, in the age of the invention and triumph of the European nation-state (the long nineteenth century), historiography of a new kind was applied for a deliberate creation of regional identity, or at least reflected the need for a historical confirmation of identities.
Historian Iván Berend turns his attention to Central and Eastern Europe in the 19th century, a turbulent period. Extending up to World War I, the period contained the seeds of developments and crises that continue to haunt the region today.
This volume analyses and compares different forms of nationalism across a range of European countries and regions during the long nineteenth century. It aims to put detailed studies of nationalist politics and thought, which have proliferated over the last ten years or so, into a wider European context. By means of such contextualization, together with new and systematic comparisons, What is a Nation? Europe 1789-1914 reassesses the arguments put forward in the principal works on nationalism as a whole, many of which pre-date the proliferation of case studies in the 1990s and which, as a consequence, make only inadequate reference to the national histories of European states. The study reconsiders whether the distinction between civic and ethnic identities and politics in Europe has been overstated and whether it needs to be replaced altogether by a new set of concepts or types. What is a Nation? explores the relationship between this and other typologies, relating them to complex processes of industrialization, increasing state intervention, secularization, democratization and urbanization. Debates about citizenship, political economy, liberal institutions, socialism, empire, changes in the states system, Darwinism, high and popular culture, Romanticism and Christianity all affected - and were affected by - discussion of nationhood and nationalist politics. The volume investigates the significance of such controversies and institutional changes for the history of modern nationalism, as it was defined in diverse European countries and regions during the long nineteenth century. By placing particular nineteenth-century nationalist movements and nation-building in a broader comparative context, prominent historians of particular European states give an original and authoritative reassessment, designed to appeal to students and academic readers alike, of one of the most contentious topics of the modern period.
Nationalism was ubiquitous in nineteenth-century Europe. Yet, we know little about what the nation meant to ordinary people. In this book, both renowned historians and younger scholars try to answer this question. This book will appeal to specialists in the field but also offers helpful reading for any college and university course on nationalism.
The subject of Euro-regions is topical and controversial, but those of Central Europe have been neglected by scholars. 'Central Europe' is demarcated variously according to geographical, political, economic and cultural criteria. The subjective term 'region' and its theoretical implications are considered in the opening chapters. The empirical section ranges in time from the appearance of the German 'stern' duchies in the Middle Ages to cross-border cooperation in the Oder area today, and geographically from Baden-Wurttemberg in the west to Transylvania, Carpatho-Ruthenia and the Kaliningrad enclave in the east. The authors all highlight the complex problems of local identity and the centrality of culture in shaping notions of the region.
This Companion provides an overview of European history during the 'long' nineteenth century, from 1789 to 1914. Consists of 32 chapters written by leading international scholars Balances coverage of political, diplomatic and international history with discussion of economic, social and cultural concerns Covers both Eastern and Western European states, including Britain Pays considerable attention to smaller countries as well as to the great powers Compares particular phenomena and developments across Europe
A collection of essays exploring the issues of national identity in modern Europe, Nations, States and Borders focuses on the 'age of state-building' period c.1830-c.1870. During this time, social and economic changes brought questions of national and regional identity to the top of the political agenda. This volume looks at the implications of these questions on a comparative basis, by analysing changing perceptions of national identity in the 'border zones' between Germany, Austria and Italy.
In the 1970s and 1980s there was a steady transfer of power in mainland Europe to new, powerful regional authorities and these, in their turn, started to build up a new form of intra-European co-operation. With the acceleration of European integration, the rise of the multinational firm and new media and transport technologies, the traditional defence-based nation-states are under threat. In this challenging study, Christopher Harvie alters the ways in which we have traditionally surveyed the European past by setting the positive and negative aspects of the present European situation in their historical context. He reappraises the actors of `national' politics, the persistence of types of civic and internationalist discourse and finally looks at the transactions which have created `bourgeois regionalism', and its implications for the future of Europe. Harvie argues that we are only beginning to realise the shift in consciousness, as well as in politics and administration, that an integrated Europe will involve.
