Research Catalog

Title

The inverted mirror : mythologizing the enemy in France and Germany, 1898-1914 / Michael E. Nolan.

Author

Nolan, Michael E.

Publication

New York : Berghahn Books, 2005.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

ix, 141 pages : illustrations; 24 cm.

Summary

"For many years, France and Germany considered each other as "arch enemies." And yet, for well over a century, these two countries waged verbal and ultimately violent wars against each other. This study explores a particularly virulent phase during which each of these two nations projected certain assumptions about national character onto the other - distorted images, motivated by antipathy, fear, and envy, which contributed to the growing hostility between the two countries in the years before the First World War. Most remarkably, as the author discovered, the qualities each country ascribed to its chief adversary appeared to be exaggerated or negative versions of precisely those qualities that it perceived to be lacking or inadequate in itself. Moreover, banishing undesirable traits and projecting them onto another people was also an essential step in the consolidation of national identity. As such, it established a pattern that has become all too familiar to students of nationalism and xenophobia in recent decades. This study shows that antagonism between states is not a fact of nature but socially constructed."--BOOK JACKET.

Series Statement

Studies in contemporary European history

Uniform Title

Studies in contemporary European history.

Subject

• National characteristics, French
• National characteristics, German
• World War, 1914-1918 > Causes
• France > Foreign relations > Germany
• Germany > Foreign relations > France
• Germany > History > 20th century
• France > History > 20th century
• France > History > Third Republic, 1870-1940
• Germany > History > 1871-1918

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 117-136) and index.

Contents

Ch. 1. Franco-German relations, 1898-1914 : a sketch -- Ch. 2. Hereditary enemies? : the once and future war -- Ch. 3. Production and reproduction : economy, fertility, and consumption -- Ch. 4. The elusive Alsatian -- Ch. 5. Shades of opinion : the political spectrum.

ISBN

1571816690

LCCN

2004048432

OCLC

• ocm55067339
• SCSB-14281131

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries