Introduction: Towards a Global History of National Historiographies

Abstract

History was a crucial element with which to construct nations and national identity. Nation-builders everywhere agreed: their nation had to have a history — the longer and the prouder the better. Creating national historical consciousness was widely seen as the most important precondition for engendering true national feeling in the wider population, as both the ethnicisation of the nation and its sacralisation only took shape against the background of history and heritage. But how, when, under which conditions and by whom was history used to create national identity? Was it used differently in different parts of the world? Was there a European master narrative of national history and were all other narratives of the nation derived from this master copy? The current volume explores these questions in global perspective with contributions ranging over all five continents.

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