Writing National Histories

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.