Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T05:52:12.379Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - Conclusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Caspar Hirschi
Affiliation:
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich
Get access

Summary

After having demonstrated the utility of men of letters in relation to the laws & customs, let us say a word about the external advantages the state takes from them. This advantage, which is so envied among individuals, is no less envied among nations.

Jean-Jacques Garnier, The Man of Letters, 1764

In an enlightened century, in a century in which each citizen can speak to the entire nation by means of print, those who have the talent for instructing men and the gift of moving them – men of letters, in a word – are, among the dispersed public, what the orators of Rome and Athens were in the midsts of the public assembly.

Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, Speech Given in a Public Session of the French Academy, 1775

This book closes in a period of history where most other studies on the origins of nationalism do not even begin. In the eyes of the leading ‘modernist’ theoreticians of nationalism, the Reformation era may look like the Île de la Cité observed from the Eiffel Tower: very distant and very irrelevant. But just as the Île de la Cité is of greater significance to the making of Paris than the Eiffel Tower, I would argue that the distant periods covered in this book are more central to the making of nations and nationalism than the more conspicuous history of modernity.

Instead of repeating the main points of this book in the conclusion, I prefer to present some general reflections on the significance of early modern history – that is, roughly speaking, the period from the German Reformation to the French Revolution – for the emergence of modern nationalism. In recent years, a number of historians have identified the Hebrew Bible as ‘the chief inspiration of nationalism’ and the English Protestants of the early modern period as the first to be inspired. They argue that the example of the ‘chosen people’ in the Old Testament, widely propagated through cheaply printed vernacular bibles and prayer books, created a homogeneous religious-cum-national identity, which, based on its radical exclusion of Catholics, became the foundation of modern nationalism. I agree that the Bible was an important resource for the construction of national myths – before and after the Reformation, both in and out of England – and that the period of confessionalisation played a crucial role in the transformation from pre-modern to modern nationalism. However, I also believe that by relating the origins of nationalism to the Hebrew Bible and by treating nationalism as a modernised form of religious ‘identity’, the baby is thrown out with the bath water. This book has tried to demonstrate that it is vital to distinguish nationalism from religion as clearly as possible in order to understand its cultural and political significance in both the past and the present. How the relation between nationalism and religion during the confessional age can be described in a more nuanced way will be the subject of the first part of this conclusion.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Origins of Nationalism
An Alternative History from Ancient Rome to Early Modern Germany
, pp. 212 - 220
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Conclusion
  • Caspar Hirschi, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich
  • Book: The Origins of Nationalism
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139032551.011
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Conclusion
  • Caspar Hirschi, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich
  • Book: The Origins of Nationalism
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139032551.011
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Conclusion
  • Caspar Hirschi, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich
  • Book: The Origins of Nationalism
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139032551.011
Available formats
×