National identities

Anne-Marie Thiesse

pp. 122-143

in: Alain Dieckhoff, Christophe Jaffrelot (eds), Revisiting nationalism, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005

Abstract

In Europe, there is no doubt whatsoever that strong national identities exist, apparently rooted in the depths of history. Yet they did not exist at the dawn of the nineteenth century. Creating them was one of the great intellectual enterprises of that century.¹ There is a major paradox in the conditions of their formation: they were forged in the context of intense international exchanges, resulting in the emergence of a common model for producing differences.