The Creation Of National Identities

From the barbarian epics to the ethnographic museums, from the national languages to emblematic landscapes or typical costumes, this book retraces the cultural fabrication of the European nations. National identities are not facts of nature, but constructions.

How is history represented? As just a record of the past, as a part of a present identity or as future goals? This book explores how historical contents and narratives are presented in school textbooks and other cultural productions (museums, monuments, etc) and also how they are understood by students, in the context of increasing globalization. In these contemporary conditions, the relation between history learning processes, in and out of school, and the construction of national identities presents an ever more important topic. It is being studied by looking at the appropriation of historical narratives, which are frequently based on the official history of a nation state. Most of the chapters in this volume are educational studies about how the learning of history takes place in school settings of different countries such as Canada, France, Germany, Latin America, Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. Covering such a broad sample of cultural and national contexts, they provide a rich reflection on history as a subject related to patriotism, cosmopolitanism, both or neither.

This collection brings together scholars from a wide range of disciplines to offer perspectives on national identity formation in various European contexts between 1600 and 1815. Contributors challenge the dichotomy between modernists and traditionalists in nationalism studies through an emphasis on continuity rather than ruptures in the shaping of European nations in the period, while also offering an overview of current debates in the field and case studies on a number of topics, including literature, historiography, and cartography.

Focuses on individual lived experiences to trace the development of world-historical studies in China's long twentieth century.

Casts new light on of the 'official' French nineteenth-century narrative by examining how historians and philosophers conceived of the country's past.

Globalisation and National Identity in History Textbooks: The Russian Federation, the 16th book in the 24-volume book series Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research, discusses trends in dominant discourses of identity politics, and nation-building in school history textbooks in the Russian Federation (RF). The book addresses one of the most profound examples of the re-writing of history following a geo-political change. Various book chapters examine debates pertaining to national identity, patriotism, and the nation-building process. The book discusses the way in which a new sense of patriotism and nationalism is documented in prescribed Russian history textbooks, and in the Russian media debate on history textbooks. It explores the ambivalent and problematic relationship between the state, globalisation and the construction of cultural identity in prescribed school history textbooks. By focusing on ideology, identity politics, and nation-building, the book examines history teachers’ responses to the content of history textbooks and how teachers depict key moments in modern Russian history. This book, an essential sourcebook of ideas for researchers, practitioners and policymakers in the fields of globalisation and history education, provides timely information on history teachers’ attitudes towards historical knowledge and historical understanding in prescribed Russian history textbooks.

Visions of the past are crucual to the way that any community imagines itself and constructs its identity. This edited volume contains the first significant studies of the politics of history education in East Asian societies.

Painted riverscapes such as Claude Monet's impressions of the Seine, Isaak Levitan's Volga views, or Thomas Cole's Hudson scenery became iconic not least because they embodied nationalist ideas about place and about culture. At a time when nationalism was taking root across Europe and the United States, the riverscape played an important role in transforming the abstract idea of the nation into a potent visual image. It not only offered a picture of the nation's physical character, but through aspects such as style, the figures portrayed, and the nature of the implied spectator, it presented a cultural ideal. In this highly original book, Tricia Cusak explores significance of painted riverscapes to the creation of national identities in nineteenth and early twentieth century Europe and America. Focusing on five rivers, the Hudson, the Volga, the Seine, the Thames, and the Shannon, the author outlines the history of the development of national landscapes, elaborating on the distinctive nature of riverscapes. Drawing on the symbolic potential of rivers to represent life and time, the riverscape provided a metaphor for the mythic stream of national history flowing unimpeded out of the past and into the future.