Power and the Nation in European History

Few would doubt the central importance of 'the nation' in the making and unmaking of modern political communities. But when did 'the nation' first become a fundamental political factor? This book engages the expertise of modern historians in an attempt to resolve the issue. A deep rift still separates 'modernist' perspectives, which view the political nation as a phenomenon limited to modern, industrialized societies, from the views of scholars concerned with the pre-industrial world who insist, often vehemently, that nations were central to pre-modern political life also.