A Contested Nation
History, Memory and Nationalism in Switzerland, 1761–1891

A study of how the Swiss gradually defined their national identity in the nineteenth century.

Oliver Zimmer (Author)

9780521819190, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 10 July 2003

292 pages, 10 b/w illus. 2 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.56 kg

'This book is a major contribution to scholarship on nineteenth-century European nationalism. It challenges simplistic approaches and instead asks the reader to pay close attention to the interplay and overlap of various national discourses.' Thomas Kiihne, Social History

This book examines the ways in which the Swiss defined their national identity in the long nineteenth century, in the face of a changing domestic and international background. Its narrative begins in 1761, when the first Swiss patriotic society of national significance was founded, and ends in 1891, when the Swiss celebrated their 600-year existence as a nation in a monumental national festival. While conceding that the creation of a nation-state in 1848 marked a watershed in the history of Swiss nation-formation, the author does not focus one-sidedly - as many others have done - on the activities of the nationalizing state. Instead, he attributes a key role to the competitive and contentious struggles over the shaping of public institutions and over the symbolic representation of the nation. These struggles, to which the nation-state and civil society contributed in equal measure, were framed increasingly along national lines.

List of illustrations
List of tables
Preface
Introduction: history, memory and the politics of national identity
1. Confederate identity before nationalism - events, politics, symbols
Part I. Towards the Cult of the Nation: 2. Dreaming of the wider fatherland - the nation of the patriots
3. Contentious unity - the rise and fall of an indivisible nation
4. 'The nation has had her say at last'
Part II. The Birth of the Modern Mass Nation: 5. 'We have become a people'
6. Competing visions of the nation's past
Afterword
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], European history [HBJD]