Images of the Nation [antikvár]

PrefaceIt could be argued that the discipline of history was bom out of nationalism.- The social relevance of history was linked to the fact that many people in the nineteenth century hoped that study of a nation's past would stimulate the national consciousness. The cordial relations between history and the nation were long-lived. It was only after World War II, and in many cases not until the 1960s, that historians became critical of the myths of nationalism, an aspect of the critique of ideology which was applied at the time to all kinds of traditional, conservative ideas. The dominant idea of the nation suggested unity and harmony instead of difference and conflict. Nationalism was revealed to be an ideology which wrongly suggested that the members of a 'nation' formed an indissoluble, coherent whole. Nowadays there are not many historians left who still regard the nation as a natural 'being' or organism with properties of its own. Nonetheless, nationalism remains a significant social phenomenon. As we have seen in recent years, not only in Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union but also in the reactions to the unification of Europe here and there in Western Europe, nationalism is still a force to be reckoned with. However, if feelings of national identity and belonging together cannot be conceived as natural links, what are they? What is their significance and function? It is in response to such questions that we