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

Oliver Zimmer

ISBN 10: 0521039800 / ISBN 13: 9780521039802

Published by Cambridge University Press, 2007

About this Item

Druck auf Anfrage Neuware - Printed after ordering - 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 nationalising 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.

Seller Inventory # 9780521039802

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Contested Nation : History, Memory and Nationalism in Switzerland, 1761-1891
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication Date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521039800
• ISBN 13: 9780521039802
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 229W x 152H x 17D millimeters 229 millimeters width by 152 millimeters height by 17 millimeters depth
• Weight: 478 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Oliver Zimmer examines the ways in which the Swiss defined their national identity in the nineteenth century, in the face of a changing domestic and international background. Zimmer explores why the nation became the focus of public concern at particular historical junctures, how different social actors created and re-created Swiss nationhood, and why the Swiss embraced some definitions rather than others. Beginning in the 1760s, which witnessed the genesis of an early national movement, the book ends in the 1890s when Switzerland developed into a modern nation.

About the Author

Oliver Zimmer was educated at the University of Zurich (Lic. Phil. I) and at the London School of Economics and Political Science (Ph.D.), and he began his academic career at the University of Durham in 1999. In 2005 he took up a University Lectureship (CUF) at Oxford. Previous publications include Nationalism in Europe, 1890–1940 (2003) and Power and the Nation in European History (edited with Len Scales, Cambridge University Press, 2005).