¹ Hagen, Schulze, Der Weg zum Nationalstaat (Munich, 1985)Google Scholar.

² On the setting up of the Monumenta Germania Historica see Ritter, Gerhard, Stein, Eine politische Biographie (Stuttgart, 1981 edn), pp. 531–5Google Scholar. More generally on national monuments and their impact see Mosse, G. L., The nationalisation of the masses (New York, 1975)Google Scholar; and James, Harold, A German identity, (London, 1989), ch. 2Google Scholar. A good specific analysis is provided by Nipperdey, Thomas, ‘Der Kölner Dom als Nationaldenkmal’, in his collection of essays Nachdenken über deutsche Geschichte(Munich, 1986), pp. 156–71Google Scholar.

³ See Mommsen, Wilhelm, Stein, Ranke, Bismarck. Ein Beitrag zur politischen void sozialen Bewegung des 19. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1954)Google Scholar on the ways in which Bismarck understood the idea of the German nation.

⁴ See his introduction to the collection of essays he edited under the title Nation-building central Europe (Leamington Spa, 1987)Google Scholar. I have reviewed this book at greater length in German History, 7, 1 (1989), 140–3Google Scholar.

⁵ The series, published by dtv (Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag) is edited by Martin Broszat and others, in association with the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich. Some thirty titles are planned, covering a range of subjects in the late modern period, especially post-1933.

⁶ Düding, Dideter, Organisierter gesellschaftlicher Nationalisms in Deutschland (1808–1847)Google Scholar. Bedeutung und Funktion der Turner- und Sängervereine für die deutsche Nationalbewegung (Munich, 1984)Google Scholar. For English readers there is a summary of Düding's major arguments in his essay ‘The nineteenth-century German nationalist movement as a movement of societies’, in Schulze, (ed.), Nation-building, pp. 19–49Google Scholar.

⁷ see the essays in Nationalism in the Age of the French Revolution (London, 1988)Google Scholar, edited by Otto Dann and John Dinwiddy especially ‘Germany’ by Segeberg, Harro, pp. 137–56Google Scholar, which makes the shift to a more elitist and cultural idea of nationality a central point.

⁸ On the significance of the Verein (voluntary association) in Germany in the 1840s see Nipperdey, Thomas, ‘Verein als soziale Struktur im späten 18. und frühen 19.Jahrhundert’, in Geschichtswissenschqft und Vereinwesen im 19.Jahrhundert. Beiträge zur Geschichte der historischen Forschung in Deutschland (Göttingen, 1972), pp. 1–44Google Scholar; now reprinted in his collection of essays Gesellschaft, Kultur, Theorie (Göttingen, 1976). See also the essays in Dann, Otto (ed.), Vereinswesen und bürgerliche Gesellschaft in Deutschland (Munich, 1984)Google Scholar. An interesting comparison with the organisational forms through which popular liberalism in England was expressed is provided by Eisenberg, Christiane, ‘Arbeiter, Bürger und der “bürgerliche Verein” 1820–1870. Deutschland und England im Vergleich’, in Bürgertum im 19.Jahrhundert. Deutschland im europäischen Vergleich (3 vols., Munich, 1988), II, 187–219Google Scholar. On the stress on the mittelständisch character of early German liberalism see Gall, Lothar, ‘Liberalismus and “Bügerliche Gesellschaft”. Zur Charakter and Entwicklug der Liberalen bewegung in deutschland’, Historische Zeitschrift, 220 (1975), 324–56Google Scholar.

⁹ Na'aman, Shlomo, Der deulsche Nationalverein. Die politische Konstitutierung des deutschen Bürgertums 1859–1867 (Düsseldorf, 1987) uses this termGoogle Scholar. This book, is considered in more detail below.

¹⁰ For an introduction to what such state building meant in the Napoleonic period see Berding, H. and Ullmann, H-P. (eds.), Deutschland zwischen Revolution und Restauration (Königstein/Ts., 1981)Google Scholar; Vogel, Barbara (ed.), Preussische Reformen 1807–1820) (Königstein/Ts., 1890)Google Scholar; Wehler, H-U., Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, vol. 1: Vom Feudalismus des alten Reiches bis zur defensiven Modemisierung der Reformära, 1700–1815 (Munich, 1987)Google Scholar. The Vormärz period is dealt with in the second volume of Wehler's study, Von der Reformära bis zur industriellen und politischen “Deutschen Doppelrevolution” 1815–1848/49 (Munich, 1987)Google Scholar; and with a more specific political focus in Conze, Werner (ed.), Staat und Gesellschaft im deutschen Vormärz (Stuttgart, 1962)Google Scholar. For English-language readers the best and most up-to-date treatment of all these questions is to be found in Sheehan, James, German history 1770–1866 (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar.

¹¹ See the essay by Stammen, Theo, ‘Goethe und das deutsche Nationalbewusstsein im beginnenden 19.Jahrhunderts’, in Heimat und Nation. zur Geschichte und Identität der Deutschen (Mainz, 1984), ed. Weigelt, Klaus, on the Bavarian approach to Goethe in 1808 asking him to prepare a German VolksbuchGoogle Scholar. Ludwig I (1825–48) was the most dedicated builder of German monuments of his time.

On state reform in Bavaria and the attempts to create a sense of loyalty amongst Bavarian subjects see Blessing, W., Staat und Kirche in der Gesellschaft. Institutioneller Autorität undmentaler Wandel in Bayern während des 19.Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weis, E., ‘Die Begründung des modernen bayerischen Staaten unter Max. I, 1799–1825’, in Handbuch der bayerischen Geschichte, ed. by Spindler, M., IV (Munich, 1974), 3–86Google Scholar; Wunder, B., Priviligierung und Disziplinierung des Berufbeamtentums in Bayern und Württemberg (1780–1825) (Munich, 1978)Google Scholar; Fehrenbach, E., Traditionale Gesellschaft und revolutionäres Recht. Die Einführung des Code Napoleon in den Rheinbundstaaten (Göttingen, 1978)Google Scholar.

¹² Blanning, T. C., The French revolution in Germany: occupation and resistance in the Rhineland 1792–1802 (Oxford, 1983)Google Scholar details such attitudes. For a more generalized scepticism about national loyalties, see Hughes, Michael, Nationalism and society: Germany, 1800–1945 (London, 1988)Google Scholar.

¹³ Conze, Werner, Schramm, Gottfried and Zernack, Klaus (eds.), Modernisierung und nationale Gesellschaft im ausgehenden 18. und im 19.Jahrhundert. Referate einer deutsch-polnischen Historiker-konferenz (Berlin, 1979)Google Scholar.

¹⁴ ‘Der politische Strukturwandel und das Problem der Nationsbildung in Deutschland um die Wende des 18.Jahrhunderts’, in ibid. pp. 48–58.

¹⁵ English-language readers can also consult Hagen, William, Germans, Poles and Jews: the nationality conflict in the Prussian East, 1772–1914 (Chicago, 1980)Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Bentfeldt, Ludwig, Der Deutsche Bund als nationales Band, 1815–1866 (Göttingen, 1985)Google Scholar.

¹⁷ On the political measures taken by the confederation see ibid. chs. 4 and 5; and Siemann, W. (ed.), Der, “Polizeiverein” deutscher Staaten. Eine Dokumentation zur Überwachung der Öffentlichkeit nach der Revolution von 1848/49 (Tübingen, 1983)Google Scholar.

¹⁸ The best and most recent treatment of German liberalism in this period, including the revolution, is Langewiesche, Dieter, Liberalismus in Deutschland (Frankfurt/M., 1988)Google Scholar. See also Sheehan, James, German liberalism in the 19th century (Chicago, 1978)Google Scholar; and Schieder, Wolfgang (ed.), Liberalismus in der Gesellschaft des deutschen Vormärz (Göttingen, 1983)Google Scholar.

¹⁹ State-orientated liberalism also sought to find cultural symbols and heroes by which to legitimise and guide its politics. Paret, Peter in Art as history: episodes in the culture and politics 19th century Germany (New Jersey, 1988)Google Scholar shows, for example, how the figure of Frederick II, rejected by earlier Prussian reformers (who were trying to undo much of Frederician Prussia) and by romantic German nationlists, could now be celebrated as an enlightened state builder.

²⁰ Na'aman is a unique historian. His interest is mainly on political ideas such as democracy, socialism and nationalism approached through the study of leading figures such as Lassalle, Marx, and Moses Hess. This led him into investigation of the associations with which those men were involved and into a very penetrating analysis of the relationships between such associations and political culture. For a brief survey of Na'aman's work see the essay by Ritter, Gerhard A., ‘Shlomo Na'aman als Historiker der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung’, in Harstick, H-P., Herzig, A., and Pelger, H. (eds), Arbeiterbewegung und Geschichte. Festschrift für Shlomo Na'aman zum 70. Geburtstag (Trier, 1983), pp. 9–19Google Scholar.

²¹ The ‘imposed’ Prussian constitution of December 1848 was the first official document to refer to the Prussian state in the singular. The legal codification of 1794, for example, referred to the Prussian state.

²² Gall, Lothar, Bismarck: the white revolutionary (2 vols., London, 1986)Google Scholar makes the relationship between Bismarck and Prusso-German liberalism the central theme for the analysis of domestic politics, whether in the period where he did or could not seek an understanding (1862–6), the period where he could and did (1867–78), and the period where the relationship faltered badly (1878–90).

²³ On Rhenish liberalism seeb E. Fehrenbach, ‘Rheinischer Liberalismus und gesellschaftliche Verfassung’ and Düwell, Kurt, ‘David Hansemann als rheinpreussischer Liberaler in Heppenheim 1847’, both in Schieder, W. (ed.), Liberalismus im Vormärz, pp. 272–94, 295–311Google Scholar; and Padtberg, B.C., Rheinischer Liberalismus in Köin während der politischen Reaktion in Preussen nach 1848–49 (Cologne, 1985)Google Scholar. An interesting regional comparison within Prussia is provided by Offermann, Toni, ‘Preussischer Liberalismus zwischen Revolution und Reichsgründung im regionaler Vergleich. Berliner und Kölner Fortschrittsliberalismus in der Kongfliktszeit’, in Liberalismus im 19.Jahrhundert. Deutschland im europäischen Vergleich,. Langewiesche, D. (Göttingen, 1988), pp. 109–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁴ For a fine study in English see White, Dan, The splintered party: national liberalism in Hessen and the Reich, 1867–1918 (London, 1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁵ Patze, Hans (ed.), Staatsgedanke und Landesbewusstsein in den neupreussischen Gebieten (1866), (Marburg/Ulm, 1985)Google Scholar. Other books which deal with this subject are Zang, G. (ed.), Provinzialisierung einer Region. Zur Entstehung der bürgerlichen Gesellschqft in der Provinz (Frankfurt/M., 1978)Google Scholar; and Baumgart, Peter (ed,), Expansion und Integration. Zur Eingliederung neugewonnener Gebiete in den preussischen Staat (Cologne, 1984)Google Scholar.

²⁶ ‘Motive der preussische Annexationspolitik 1866’, ibid. pp. 1–18. The popularity or mildness of the annexations has no relevance to the legality of the matter.

²⁷ Clearly the redefinition of the Prussian dynastic state as the core of a German national state, however imperfectly realised, alienated Poles who had been loyal subjects of the Hohenzollerns. Danes had never been subjected to Prussian rule before 1865 and, given the circumstances in which that rule was imposed, were hardly likely to be easily reconciled to it. In neither case does one need to place too much stress on a long-standing sense of ethnic national identity.

²⁸ Aschoff, H-G., ‘Politische Strömungen und Entwicklungen in der Provinz Hannover während des Kaiserreiches’, in Patze, (ed.), Staatsgedanke und Landesbewusstsein, pp. 63–94Google Scholar.

²⁹ English readers can get some ideas about the character of this political movement from Anderson's, Margaret biography, Windthorst: a political biography (Oxford, 1981)Google Scholar.

³⁰ See H. Berding, ‘Staatliche Identität, nationale Integration und politische Regionalismus’, in ibid. pp. 111–33.

³¹ Harold James, A German identity.

³² Schieder, Theodor, Der deutsche Kaiserreich von 1871 als Nationalstaat (Cologne & Opladen, 1961)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³³ For an English translation of the text of the 1871 constitution, as well as the constitution of 1919, the west German basic law of 1949, and the constitution draw n up by the German National Assembly in 1849, see Hucko, E. M. (ed.), The democratic tradition (Leamington Spa, 1987)Google Scholar.

³⁴ On the significance of imperial symbolism see Fehrenbach, E., Wandlungen des deutschen Kaisergedankens, 1871–1918 (Munich, 1989)Google Scholar.

³⁵ For the case of Bavaria see W. Blessing, Stoat und Kirche.

³⁶ Many of these points about the institutions an d symbols of the second empire have also been made in the essay by Werner Conze, ‘Staatsnationale Entwicklung und Modernisierung im Deutschen Reich 1871–1914’ in Conze, et al. (eds.), Modernisierung und nationale Gesellschaft.

³⁷ Cannadine, David, ‘The British monarchy and the “invention of tradition”, c 1820–1977’, in The invention of tradition (London, 1983), ed. Hobsbawm, E. J. and Ranger, T. O.Google Scholar. See also Nairn, Tom, The enchanted glass: Britain and its monarchy (London, 1988)Google Scholar.

³⁸ For a recent penetrating study of that regionalism and conflict see Davis, John W., Conflict and control: law and order in 19th century Italy (London, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For suggestive arguments as to why many Italian nationalists would see independence as providing the possibility of moving back to more localized forms of authority than had existed in the peninsula under Austrian domination, see the essay ‘Italy’ by Meriggi, Marco in Dann, and Dinwiddy, , Nationalism in the age of the French revolution, pp. 199–212Google Scholar.

³⁹ Weber, Eugen, Peasants into Frenchmen: the modernisation of rural France 1870–1914 (London, 1977)Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ See Faulenbach, B., Ideologie des deutschen Weges. Die deutsche Geschichte in der Historiographie Zwischen Kaiserreich und Nationalsozialismus (Munich, 1980), pp. 67–8Google Scholar where he cites Schieder outlining three perspectives (or norms) by which to evaluate the second empire.

⁴¹ Kocka, Jürgen, ‘Das Problem der Nation in der deutschen Geschichte, 1870–1945’, in Die Rolle der Nation in der deutschen Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Busch, Otto and Sheehan, James (Berlin, 1985), pp. 118–36Google Scholar; and reprinted in a collection of Kocka's essays entitled Geschichte und Aufklärung (Gottingen, 1989), pp. 82–100.

⁴² Ibid. for a general consideration of this. For Guelph particularism see H-G. Aschoff, ‘Politische Stromungen’.

⁴³ For the idea of voting as ‘affirming’ identity see Suval, Stanley, Electoral politics in Wilhelmine Germany (Chapel Hill & London, 1985)Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Apart from Suval, Electoral politics, see the suggestive essay by Ritter, Gerhard A., Die deutschen Pareien 1830–1914 (Göttingen, 1985)Google Scholar. This includes a trenchant critique of the exaggerations of the ‘parliamentarization’ idea.

⁴⁵ I deliberately omit any explicit consideration of the Third Reich for reasons of length. For continuity of conflict, even if repressed and suppressed, see Peukert, D., Inside Nazi Germany: conformity and opposition in everyday life (London, 1987)Google Scholar. The person and image of Hitler may have had an integrating effect, but this was a substitute for more enduring and institutionalized forms of integration. See Kershaw, Ian, The ‘Hitler myth’: image and reality in the Third Reich (Oxford, 1987)Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ Willms, Johannes begins his book, Nationalismus ohne Nation: Deutche Geschichte 1789–1914 (Dtisseldorf, 1983)Google Scholar with a telling quotation from Nietzsche, , ‘Es kennzeichnet die Deutschen, dass bei ihnen die Frage “was ist deutsch?” niemals ausstirbt’ (p. 9)Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ I also avoid this subject because of length and because it is so bound up with the historical treatment of the Third Reich. For a brief introduction to the escalating debate see Kershaw, Ian, The Nazi dictatorship (London, 1989 edn), ch. 9Google Scholar; and Eley, Geoff, ‘Nazism, politics and public memory: thoughts on the west German Hislorikerstreit 1986–1987’ Past and Present, 121 (1988), 171–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁸ Heck, Bruno, ‘Vorwort’, Heimat und Nation, tells this story (pp. 11–12)Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Apart from the essay by Stürmer, Michael, ‘Die deutsche Frage als europäisches Problem. Ein Sonderweg deutscher Geschichte?’ in Heimat und Nation, pp. 286–301Google Scholar; see his essay ‘France and German unification’ and that of Schulze, Hagen ‘Europe and the German question in historical perspective’, both in Schulze, (ed.), Nation-building in central Europe pp. 135–48, 183–95Google Scholar. Similar arguments were developed by right-wing historians in Weimar, see Faulenbach, Ideologic des deutschen Weges.

⁵⁰ For an example of this constitutional view of nationality see Langewiesche, Dieter, ‘“Nation” und “Nationalstaat”: zum Funktionswandel politisch-gesellschaftlicher Leitideen in Deutschland seit dem 19.Jahrhundert’, in Perspektiven gesellschqftlicher Entwicklung in beiden deutschen Staaten, ed. Busch, Frederick W. (Oldenbourg, 1989), pp. 173–82Google Scholar.

⁵¹ For some of these arguments see Helmut Berding, ‘Staatliche Identität’.

⁵² See the book edited by Dann and Dinwiddy, Nationalism in the age of the French revolution.

⁵³ For an early elaboration of this distinction see Kohn, Hans, The idea of nationalism (New York, 1967 edn)Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ ‘Die deutsche Nation im Bewusstsein der Bevölkerung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland’, pp.161–88.

⁵⁵ What is more, the indication that even ethnic Germans from East Germany are unwelcome if they come in too great numbers, shows that the more widespread resentment of immigrants is more important than the specifically West Germa n commitment to their ‘fellow nationals’ in eastern Europe.

⁵⁶ For an extended argument along these lines, see my book Nationalism and the state (Manchester & Chicago, 1985 edn)Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Even this needs to be qualified. Most people in central Europe before 1800 did not expect to remain under the same ‘state’ for a long period. Usually, however, transfer from one state to another did not bring into question the ‘identities’ which really mattered to most people. It is only in the Europe created by Napoleon an d perpetuated at the congress of Vienna that state identity really started to matter for increasingly large numbers of people.

⁵⁸ See Grebing, Helga, Der ‘deutsche Sonderweg’ in Europa 1806–1945, Eine Kritik (Stuttgart, 1986)Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ This is a key part of Faulenbach's critique. He points out that certain ideas, such as that of ‘Mittellage’, are not deployed as hypotheses which might guide research, but as the asserted findings of historians. When one points out that ‘middle’ is a relative term, that France is between Britain and Germany, Poland between Germany and Russia, the response of such historians is simply to add something else to preserve the original idea of uniqueness. In the same way, Weimar historians had to add something to the contrasting models of a continental and an insular type of state because the former could not be regarded as uniquely German. Yet that is a contrasting pair of ideal types that could be constructively deployed.

⁶⁰ I write at a time when the working party set up to look at the history syllabus within the new national curriculum has been asked, it is rumoured, by the government to consider the need for yet more ‘British’ history (as well as the imbibing of a sufficiency of ‘facts’ about that history). The present report does not envisage the third Reich appearing in the compulsory part of the course.

⁶¹ Nationalismus ohne Nation.

⁶² Nipperdey, Thomas, Deutsche Geschichte 1800–1866. Bürgerwelt undstarker Staat (Munich, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶³ For a concise development of this view, see Kocka, Jürgen, ‘Zurück zur Erzählung? Pläydoyer für historische Argumentation’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, X (1984), 295–308Google Scholar, now reprinted Geschichte und Aufklärung, pp. 8–20.

⁶⁴ Bulletin of the German Historical Institute London, XVI (summer, 1984), 23–34Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ Kedourie, Elie takes this approach, beginning his book Nationalism (London, 1960)Google Scholar with the striking and well-known statement, ‘Nationalism is a doctrine invented at the beginning of the nineteenth century’. Understandably he focuses then upon the activity of central European intellectuals, in particular Germans.

⁶⁶ Anderson, Benedict, Imagined communities: reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism (London, 1983)Google Scholar provides some very stimulating ideas as to how such an exploration might be h carried out.

⁶⁷ The most important general theorist of this approach is Karl Deutsch. See his book Nationalism and social communication (New York, 1966)Google Scholar. An interesting attempt to analyse Austro-Prussian relations from this perspective is Katzenstein, Peter, Disjoined partners: Austria and Prussia since 1915 (Berkeley, 1976)Google Scholar. One advantage of the approach is that it clearly specifies the kind of evidence required, e.g. transactions between regions in such matters as population movements, exchanges of letters, telegraph and railway links.

⁶⁸ puts, Gellner these arguments to use specifically to understand nationalism in his book Nations and nationalism (Oxford, 1983)Google Scholar. He has developed them at a much higher level of generality in order to relate modernity to changes in the nature of consciousness and culture in a more recent book, Plough, sword and book: the structure of human history (London, 1988)Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ For a general critique of Gellner, and of Anderson, Benedict, see my review article ‘Reflections on nationalism’, Philosophy of the social sciences, 15 (1985), 65–75Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ These are ways of analysing the function of national ideas within nationalist movements which I have developed in my book Nationalism and the state.

⁷¹ For example, radical right nationalism declined in post-Dreyfus France at precisely the same time (and for the same reasons) as the increased integrative capacities of the state helped promote a broader, patriotic commitment to the republic. Yet it was rage at that success which stimulated right-wing nationalists to try to revive nationalist myths. The contrasting political careers of Charles Maurras and Jean Jaurès bríng the distinction out well. See Weber, Eugene, The nationalist revival in France, 1905–1914 (Berkeley, 1959)Google Scholar.