Intellectuals and the Nation
Collective Identity in a German Axial Age

This book proposes a cultural theory of national identity, and also studies nineteenth-century and post-war German identity formation.

Bernhard Giesen (Author), Nicholas Levis (Translated by), Amos Weisz (Translated by)

9780521639965, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 6 August 1998

258 pages
22.6 x 15.5 x 1.4 cm, 0.35 kg

"This impressive monograph by one of the most reowned German sociologists" Canadian Jrnl of His...The book is much more stimulating than this summary may suggest." Wolfgang E.J. Weber

This book proposes a theory of collective and national identity based on culture and language rather than power and politics. Applying this to what he calls Germany's 'axial age', Bernhard Giesen shows how the codes of nineteenth-century German identity in turn became those of the divided Germany between 1945 and 1989. The identity he describes derives from the ideas of German intellectuals, from the uprooted Romantic poets to the influential German mandarins. Carried by the emerging bourgeoisie, it was constructed on the tensions between power and spirit, money and culture, and the sacred and profane.

Introduction: the nation in social science and history
1. The construction of collective identity
2. The encounter with Otherness
3. The nation as invisible public: the patriotic code
4. The nation as holy grail of the intellectuals: the transcendental code of Romanticism
5. The people on the barricades: the democratic code
6. The State-nation up to the founding of Empire: the code of 'Realpolitik'
7. The national identity of the Germans
Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Cultural studies [JFC]