The cult of the nation in France: inventing nationalism, 1680-1800
ISBN: 9780674004474
Platform/Publisher: ACLS / Harvard University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Ten pages at a time; Download: Ten pages at a time
Subjects: European: 1400-1800;

Using 18th-century France as a case study, David Bell offers an alternative argument about the origins of nationalism. Before the 18th century, the very idea of nation-building - a central component of nationalism - did not exist. During this period, leading French intellectual and political figures came to see perfect national unity as a critical priority, and so sought ways to endow all French people with the same language, laws, customs, and values. The period thus gave rise to the first large-scale nationalist programme in history.


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