Nationalizing the Past Historians as Nation Builders in Modern Europe

Although professional historians traditionally have claimed to be 'myth-breakers', national history from the 19th century onwards shows that they have quite a record in 'myth-making'. This tension between myth-making and breaking actually is still with us today. Now for the first time in paperback, this volume analyzes in a truly comparative and transnational manner how some of the most important national historians in Europe have handled the opposing pulls of fact and fiction and which narrative strategies have contributed to the success of national histories. Which role did the narrative framing of beginnings, middles and endings of national histories play? How were continuities and discontinuities constructed? How did the discourse of 'the nation' integrate narratives of ethnicity, race, class, religion and gender? This volume also shows how 20th century dictatorships have influenced the ways in which the past has been 'nationalized' by historians and asks whether national history as a genre still has a future in the 21st century.

Stefan Berger is Professor of Social History and Director of the Institute for Social Movements at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany, as well as Executive Chair of the Foundation Library of the Ruhr. Previously, he was Professor of Modern German and Comparative European History at the University of Manchester, and Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Glamorgan, UK. He has published widely on the history of historiography, national identity, memory history, and the history of social movements.

Chris Lorenz is Professor in German Historical Culture at the VU University Amsterdam and connected to the Duitsland Instituut Amsterdam. At present he is Senior Research Fellow at the Ruhr-University Bochum. He has previously been Professor of Philosophy of History at the University of Leiden and taught history of ideas at Amsterdam University College. He has published widely on philosophy of history, comparative historiography, history and memory, and higher education policies.

Preface
Notes on Contributors
1. Introduction; S.Berger and C.Lorenz
2. Narrativizations of the Past: The Theoretical Debate and the Example of the Weimar Republic; J.Eckel
3. Double Trouble: a Comparison of the Politics of National History in Germany and Quebec; C.Lorenz
4. Setting the Scene for National History; J.Leerssen
5. A Strained Relationship: Epistemology and Historiography in Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Germany and Britain; A.Epple
6. Wars of Religion in National History Writing at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century: P. J. Blok, Karl Lamprecht, Ernest Lavisse and Henri Pirenne; G.Warland
7. Heretics into National Heroes: Jules Michelet's Joan of Arc and František Palacký's John Hus; M.Baár
8. History and Politics: Interpretations of Early Modern Conquest and Reformation in Victorian Ireland; M.Caball
9. Narrating the Building of a Small Nation: Divergence and Convergence in the Historiography of the Estonian 'National Awakening', 1868-2005; J.Hackmann
10. Theorizing and Practicing 'Scientific' History in South-Eastern Europe (19th-20th c.): Spyridon Lambros and Nicolae Jorga; E.Gazi
11. Theatre Histories and the Construction of National Identity: The Cases of Norway and Finland; I.Pikkanen
12. Nation, State and Empire: The Historiography of 'High Imperialism' in the British and Russian Empires; A.Mycock and M.Loskoutova
13. Inside-out: the Purposes of Form in Friedrich Meinecke's and Robert Aron's Explanations of National Disaster; H.Frey and S.Jordan
14. Ends of Empire: Decolonising the Nation in British and French Historiography; R.Aldrich and S.Ward
15. Clio and Class Struggle in Socialist Histories of the Nation: A Comparison of Robert Grimm's and Eduard Bernstein's Writings, 1910-1920; T.Welskopp
16. Rewriting National History in Post-War Central Europe: Marxist Syntheses of Austrian and Czechoslovak History as New National Master Narratives; P.Kolár
17. Nineteenth Century Liberal Master Narratives Revisited: A Comparison of Gyula Szekfu and Benedetto Croce; Á.v.Klimó
18. After the Deluge: The Impact of the Two World Wars on the Historical Work of Henri Pirenne and Marc Bloch; P.Schöttler
19. The Lombard League in nineteenth-century historiography, c.1800-c.1850; D.Laven
20. History of Civilisation: Transnational or Postimperial? Some Iberian Perspectives (1870-1930); X-M.Núñez
21. Rising Like a Phoenix…The Renaissance of National History Writing in Germany and Britain since the 1980s; S.Berger
22. Myth in the Writing of European History; J.Ifversen
23. The Nation, Progress, and European Identity in The Rise of Modern Europe; J.L.Harvey
Notes
Index