The Power of National Pasts: Writing National History in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Europe

Abstract

National history writing in Europe is older than the nineteenth century. In fact, we find authors writing about natio and nationes in the middle ages and in early modern Europe. Take, for example, the case of the twelfth-century English historian William of Malmesbury,² whose Deeds of the Kings of the English conveys a clear idea of the political and cultural unity of a nation called England. Having a distinct notion of a civilising process, William’s text praises the English for becoming civilised under the influence of the Normans and formulates a specific mission of the English for civilising the barbarous Celts, i.e. the Welsh, Scots and Irish. The central theme of William’s history, the progress of civilisation, is taken up much later by David Hume in the eighteenth century. Hume admired William’s writings and shared his Francophilia as well as his belief in progress and civilisation — central themes indeed of the entire eighteenth-century historiography in Europe.³

This chapter could not have been written without the existence of the five-year European Science Foundation programme entitled ‘Representations of the Past: the Writing of National Histories in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Europe’, which I have had the pleasure of directing since 2003. I am grateful to the well over one hundred scholars from around thirty European countries who have attended its workshops and conferences and contributed chapters to publications of the programme. For details see http://www.uni-leipzig.de/zhsesf.