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States, Nations and Nationalism
The first general history of the evolution of European states and nations from medieval times to the present.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1994
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February 6, 2017This review may well sound less positive and more begrudging than it should. After Imagined Communities or the likes of Britons Forging the Nation I expect close analysis and a bit of theory, the forward to this book even mentions the question of how national consciousness develops but Schulze takes a different direction giving instead an overview of how we, in much of Europe at least, came to our present pass in which the existence of nation states is taken for granted as something self evident and natural.
He succeeds in doing this in a very fluid text that reminded me of a lecture course with its brisk flow across western Europe; the first chapter looking at States, theories of the state and communities from the middle ages to the early modern period, the second looking at nations down to the mid nineteenth century, the third looking at the nation state from 1815 until 1945 with the fourth chapter taking us into the era of the EU. However I was left largely dissatisfied. The absence of case studies and theory left me wanting the accompanying seminars (metaphorically speaking) and comparing this book unfavourably to Kappeler's The Russian Empire which I felt handled the issue of developing nations in a more compelling way.
At the end of Schulze's book the EU comes in as antidote to the self-destructive nationalism that led to 1914 and 1939. This counter balances the optimism of Francis Fukuyama whose concept of the End of History begins this book. Once a social-Darwinist view of existence as the survival of the fittest has become widespread then from a nationalist perspective a merciless struggle between nations becomes a matter of biological necessity. Ludendorff, German WWI general and one time supporter of Hitler, went beyond Clausewitz. For him war and politics became one, peace didn't exist, relationships between nations were always conflictual, since there is only victory or defeat therefore there must be the complete mobilisation of state and nation. Naturally this type of eat or be eaten idea gives rise to a certain nervousness best avoided in the conduct of international relations, as German chancellor Bethmann Hollweg remarked in 1912 Aber sehr häufig, meine Herren sind die Kriege nicht von den Regierungen geplant und herbeigeführt worden. Die Völker sind vielfach durch lärmende und fanatisierte Minoritäten in die Kriege hineingetrieben worden. Diese Gefahr besteht noch heute und vielleicht heute in noch höherem Masse als früher, nachdem Öffentlichkeit, Volksstimmung, Agitation an Gewicht und Bedeutung zugenommen haben" p.278
Despite agitation, protest and revolt in support of ideal nation states - most famously in 1848 - the reality was very messy, according to estimates something like 2.5% of Italians had a fluent command of their own (notional) national language in 1861 when unification was achieved. Despite this the new state had irredentist designs on the additional linguist diversity of the Dalmatian coast and South Tyrol.
The diversity of ideas of nationalism is something that Schulze could have made explicit. The nation could be something very narrowly convinced - a political nation consisting perhaps of only the nobility and the clergy, an approach common in Poland and Hungary in the eighteenth century while at about the same time the Abbe Sieyes in France saw the Third estate alone as the carrier of the community. The discovery of Tacitus' Germania led German speaking humanists to invent by contrast a broad sense of an unchanging nation continuously there since antiquity. The raw, uncivilised, drunkards of today in the light of Tacitus (uncritically applied) could be seen as they "really" were: true, brave and beer drinking, simple living people.
In a final tribute to the lecture style of the whole book I close by citing one of Schulze's asides: in 1889 Elizabeth Cochrane, a journalist on the New York "World" newspaper travelled round the world in 72 days, six hours and 11 minutes pausing to visit Jules Verne and to buy a monkey in Singapore.
He succeeds in doing this in a very fluid text that reminded me of a lecture course with its brisk flow across western Europe; the first chapter looking at States, theories of the state and communities from the middle ages to the early modern period, the second looking at nations down to the mid nineteenth century, the third looking at the nation state from 1815 until 1945 with the fourth chapter taking us into the era of the EU. However I was left largely dissatisfied. The absence of case studies and theory left me wanting the accompanying seminars (metaphorically speaking) and comparing this book unfavourably to Kappeler's The Russian Empire which I felt handled the issue of developing nations in a more compelling way.
At the end of Schulze's book the EU comes in as antidote to the self-destructive nationalism that led to 1914 and 1939. This counter balances the optimism of Francis Fukuyama whose concept of the End of History begins this book. Once a social-Darwinist view of existence as the survival of the fittest has become widespread then from a nationalist perspective a merciless struggle between nations becomes a matter of biological necessity. Ludendorff, German WWI general and one time supporter of Hitler, went beyond Clausewitz. For him war and politics became one, peace didn't exist, relationships between nations were always conflictual, since there is only victory or defeat therefore there must be the complete mobilisation of state and nation. Naturally this type of eat or be eaten idea gives rise to a certain nervousness best avoided in the conduct of international relations, as German chancellor Bethmann Hollweg remarked in 1912 Aber sehr häufig, meine Herren sind die Kriege nicht von den Regierungen geplant und herbeigeführt worden. Die Völker sind vielfach durch lärmende und fanatisierte Minoritäten in die Kriege hineingetrieben worden. Diese Gefahr besteht noch heute und vielleicht heute in noch höherem Masse als früher, nachdem Öffentlichkeit, Volksstimmung, Agitation an Gewicht und Bedeutung zugenommen haben" p.278
Despite agitation, protest and revolt in support of ideal nation states - most famously in 1848 - the reality was very messy, according to estimates something like 2.5% of Italians had a fluent command of their own (notional) national language in 1861 when unification was achieved. Despite this the new state had irredentist designs on the additional linguist diversity of the Dalmatian coast and South Tyrol.
The diversity of ideas of nationalism is something that Schulze could have made explicit. The nation could be something very narrowly convinced - a political nation consisting perhaps of only the nobility and the clergy, an approach common in Poland and Hungary in the eighteenth century while at about the same time the Abbe Sieyes in France saw the Third estate alone as the carrier of the community. The discovery of Tacitus' Germania led German speaking humanists to invent by contrast a broad sense of an unchanging nation continuously there since antiquity. The raw, uncivilised, drunkards of today in the light of Tacitus (uncritically applied) could be seen as they "really" were: true, brave and beer drinking, simple living people.
In a final tribute to the lecture style of the whole book I close by citing one of Schulze's asides: in 1889 Elizabeth Cochrane, a journalist on the New York "World" newspaper travelled round the world in 72 days, six hours and 11 minutes pausing to visit Jules Verne and to buy a monkey in Singapore.
April 6, 2026
National issues and nationalism are again in the news. The Russo-Ukrainian War, the conflict and repression in Gaza, the populist waves in the EU or the policies pursued by the Trump and Xi administrations are but a few examples. Nation and state are concepts launched in Europe, and the German historian Hagen Schulze traces their origin in this work. Sometimes too nuanced, in comparison with contemporary writings on this theme, it is a good book, useful for the reader interested in contemporary events.
Hagen Schulze’s history is an eclectic work that emphasizes narration instead of an original interpretation. Hegel, Tocqueville, Marx, Renan, Weber, Elias, psychoanalysis, Hinze or Kissinger are found in the pages of this book. There is also an unavoidable complexity, multiple directions of change that often are left unfinished for decades or centuries. This review is focused on the wider picture and on the author’s understanding of nations and nationalism.
In Western Europe, the state is older than the nation, yet the processes of nation-building varied, and sometimes, the opposite change happened. All of them were modeled after the late Roman Empire and this practice of imitation explains their longevity and, in part, the civilizational unity, according to Hagen Schulze. States means here political entity, since the modern state itself was the product of a long evolution, that started with the objectification of the medieval fief and the idea of a detached monarchical power. A mixture of demographic, technological, economical changes, alongside the temporal decline of religion and nobility, combined with the practice of centralization or war, led to the consolidation of the sovereign state.
Hagen Schulze understood the nation by reference to the famous perspective of Ernest Renan, as a community of identity, chosen by its members, with a symbolic link to the past. It is not perennial, its meanings changed and the variation in the processes of nation-building led to two major forms, the state (political) nation and the cultural (ethnic) nation, that often interacted. The history of the United Kingdom (England?) France are the classical example for the first case, and Germany or Italy, for the second. The French Revolution was a major event because it removed the remaining barriers facing political centralization, it consecrated the national principle and it provoked nationalistic reactions.
Eastern Europe emerged as a political space defined by the meeting of three multinational empires, Austrian, Russian and Ottoman. The combination between states and nations defined European politics in the last two centuries, and became dominant after the 1848-1849 revolutions. There were several stages and versions, such as the revolutionary (democratic) one, the imperial (ist), and totalitarian. Hagen Schulze emphasized the endurance of this formula even today, though he left the door open for a stronger supranational future.
Hagen Schulze’s history is an eclectic work that emphasizes narration instead of an original interpretation. Hegel, Tocqueville, Marx, Renan, Weber, Elias, psychoanalysis, Hinze or Kissinger are found in the pages of this book. There is also an unavoidable complexity, multiple directions of change that often are left unfinished for decades or centuries. This review is focused on the wider picture and on the author’s understanding of nations and nationalism.
In Western Europe, the state is older than the nation, yet the processes of nation-building varied, and sometimes, the opposite change happened. All of them were modeled after the late Roman Empire and this practice of imitation explains their longevity and, in part, the civilizational unity, according to Hagen Schulze. States means here political entity, since the modern state itself was the product of a long evolution, that started with the objectification of the medieval fief and the idea of a detached monarchical power. A mixture of demographic, technological, economical changes, alongside the temporal decline of religion and nobility, combined with the practice of centralization or war, led to the consolidation of the sovereign state.
Hagen Schulze understood the nation by reference to the famous perspective of Ernest Renan, as a community of identity, chosen by its members, with a symbolic link to the past. It is not perennial, its meanings changed and the variation in the processes of nation-building led to two major forms, the state (political) nation and the cultural (ethnic) nation, that often interacted. The history of the United Kingdom (England?) France are the classical example for the first case, and Germany or Italy, for the second. The French Revolution was a major event because it removed the remaining barriers facing political centralization, it consecrated the national principle and it provoked nationalistic reactions.
Eastern Europe emerged as a political space defined by the meeting of three multinational empires, Austrian, Russian and Ottoman. The combination between states and nations defined European politics in the last two centuries, and became dominant after the 1848-1849 revolutions. There were several stages and versions, such as the revolutionary (democratic) one, the imperial (ist), and totalitarian. Hagen Schulze emphasized the endurance of this formula even today, though he left the door open for a stronger supranational future.
February 26, 2018
Read chapters 5, 6, 8, and 9 for a class on the European States back in Maastricht. It did lend a hand in understanding the emergence of nation-states in Europe. It's presented with dense facts on the Middle Ages.
September 10, 2014
Oh boy, Hagen Schulze sure likes the terms 'hitherto' and 'mutatis mutandis'. Other than that, I found it very hard to find some cohesion in this book. Sure, it is what it says on the tin. But it's a tin that has been shaken gravely. I think it's supposed to be chronologic, and it is more or less. Still there are constant time lapses and flashbacks and repetitions. An explanation of the terms States, Nations and Nationalism is given in the Preface but after that they are used diffusely. Another thing that was not confusing but somewhat strange is the fact that Europe only seems to excist of France, Italy, Germany (HRE) and the United Kingdom. Bits and pieces of other countries are shortly mentioned but I was shocked to find out in chapter 12 Hagen Schulze DID know Eastern Europe excisted. Not sure about Northern Europe though.
July 17, 2012
Good overview of how nations as we know them emerged in (mostly Western) Europe.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews