Research Catalog
The myth of nations : the Medieval origins of Europe
- Title
- The myth of nations : the Medieval origins of Europe / Patrick J. Geary.
- Author
- Geary, Patrick J., 1948-
- Publication
- Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, ©2002.
- Supplementary Content
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JFE 16-1335 | Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315 |
Details
- Description
- x, 199 pages; 24 cm
- Summary
- Modern-day Europeans by the millions proudly trace back their national identities to the Celts, Franks, Gauls, Goths, Huns, or Serbs--or some combination of the various peoples who inhabited, traversed, or pillaged their continent more than a thousand years ago. According to Patrick Geary, this is historical nonsense. The idea that national character is fixed for all time in a simpler, distant past is groundless, he argues in this unflinching reconsideration of European nationhood. Few of the peoples that many Europeans honor as sharing their sense of ''nation'' had comparably homogeneous identities even the Huns, he points out, were firmly united only under Attila's ten-year reign. Geary dismantles the nationalist myths about how the nations of Europe were born. He contrasts the myths with the actual history of Europe's transformation between the fourth and ninth centuries--the period of grand migrations that nationalists hold dear. The nationalist sentiments today increasingly taken for granted in Europe emerged, he argues, only in the nineteenth century. Ironically, this phenomenon was kept alive not just by responsive populations--but by complicit scholars. Ultimately, Geary concludes, the actual formation of European peoples must be seen as an extended process that began in antiquity and continues in the present. The resulting image is a challenge to those who anchor contemporary antagonisms in ancient myths--to those who claim that immigration and tolerance toward minorities despoil ''nationhood.'' As Geary shows, such ideologues--whether Le Pens who champion ''the French people born with the baptism of Clovis in 496'' or Milosevics who cite early Serbian history to claim rebellious regions--know their myths but not their history.
- Subjects
- Nationalism
- Europe
- Xenophobia
- Immigrants
- Europe > Race relations
- Ethnic relations
- History
- Xenophobia > Europe
- Germanic Invasions of Rome (3rd-6th centuries)
- Boundaries
- Race relations
- Rome > Boundaries > History
- Rome > History > Germanic Invasions, 3rd-6th centuries
- Immigrants > Europe
- Nationenbildung
- Europe > Ethnic relations > History
- Nationalism > Europe > History > 19th century
- Europe > History > 476-1492
- Rome (Empire)
- 200-1899
- Römisches Reich
- Genre/Form
- History.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-187) and index.
- Contents
- The crisis of European identity -- A poisoned landscape : ethnicity and nationalism in the nineteenth century -- Imagining peoples in antiquity -- Barbarians and other Romans -- New barbarians and new Romans -- The last barbarians? -- Toward new European peoples.
- Call Number
- JFE 16-1335
- ISBN
- 0691090548
- 9780691090542
- 9780691114811
- 0691114811
- LCCN
- 2001036336
- OCLC
- 47182376
- Author
- Geary, Patrick J., 1948-
- Title
- The myth of nations : the Medieval origins of Europe / Patrick J. Geary.
- Imprint
- Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, ©2002.
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-187) and index.
- Local Note
- NOT HANDLED ON AP-RECENT REPRINT
- Connect to:
- Chronological Term
- 200-1899
- Research Call Number
- JFE 16-1335