The Intellectual Origins of the Nation: Political and Historical Nationhood in France and Germany 1789-1809

The concept of political Nation is arguably the most significant contribution of the French Revolution to European political history. Unlike democracy, the other major idea driving the Revolution, the Nation is accepted by all political regimes, whether democratic or not. In spite of what has been repeatedly said, the Revolution did not create the nation: on the contrary, the creation of the political nation was the origin of the events that, at the end, formed the French Revolution. This is the first work of its kind which has attempted to define who constituted the 'political nation' in French ideology. In parallel with the Revolution, German scholars developed a different concept: the 'historical nation'. This concept was essentially identified from the outset with the idea of 'Volk', and in so doing, the 'Volk' replaced the 'nation'. Both concepts of nation, political and historical, emerged separately at the end of the 18th century, but by the end of the 19th century, the 'political nation' had adopted some important characteristics of the historical one. Although the idea of 'nation' developed during the 19th century, its origins have not been explored. In the book, the author investigates the French revolutionaries' understanding of the nation and the significant differences between the bourgeois and sans-culotte concepts. Both ideas, political and historical nationhood, shared an essential characteristic: they exclude a section of the population, as later Marxist ideology did with the bourgeoisie versus the proletariat. This unique work will be of great interest to political historians, scholars and researchers.