Liberty and the Search for Identity

Liberal Nationalisms and the Legacy of Empires

Description
Table of contents
Reviews

Liberalism was not only the first modern ideology, it was also the first secular movement to have an international presence. The scholarly articles in this collection, skillfully edited by Iván Zoltán Dénes, examine liberal ideas and movements from Scotland to the Ottoman Empire. The volume seeks to uncover and analyze various relationships between liberalisms and nationalisms, national identities and modernity concepts, nations and empires, nation-states and nationalities, traditions and modernities, images of the self and the others, modernization strategies and identity creations.

This volume provides an important historical analysis that is essential toward understanding the questions and motivations of liberalism in the European Union today. This is, therefore, a timely contribution to both historiography and contemporary politics.

The Editor's Preface
Iván Z. Dénes: The Ambiguous Relationship of Liberalism and Nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe

I. Western Europe

1. David McCrone: Scotland and England: Diverging Political Discourses
2. Richard Finlay: Radical Liberalism and Nationalism in Mid-Victorian Scotland
3. Henk te Velde: Dutch Liberals and Nineteenth-Century National Traditions
4. Janet Polasky: Liberal Nationalism and the Brabant Revolutions

II. Central Europe

1. Gábor Erdődy: Unity or Liberty? German Liberalism Founding an Empire, 1850-79
2. Albert Tanner: Switzerland: A European Model of Liberal Nationalism?
3. Vilmos Heiszler: The Identity Problems of the Austro-German Liberals
4. Iván Zoltán Dénes: Political Vocabulary of the Hungarian Liberals and Conservatives, 1790-1848
5. Miklós Szabó: The Liberalism of the Hungarian Nobility (1825–1910).
6. Maciej Janowski: Marginal or Central? The Place of the Liberal Tradition in Nineteenth-Century Polish History
7. Otto Urban: Czech Liberalism, 1848–1918

III. Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Southern Europe

1. Miklós Kun: The Inherent Burden of Russian Liberalism.
2. Alexander Semyonov: Empire and Nation in the History of Russian Liberalism
3. Imre Ress: The Value System of Serb Liberalism
4. Daniel Barbu - Cristian Preda: Building the State from the Roof Down. Varieties of Romanian Liberal Nationalism
5. Diana Mishkova: The Interesting Anomaly of Balkan Liberalism
6. Eyüp Özveren: In Defiance of History: Liberal and National Attributes of the Ottoman-Turkish Road to Modernity

Index

Austrian History Yearbook

"This volume is a monumental undertaking. For that and for his valuable introduction to the volume, the editor deserves a great deal of credit. His attention to the ambiguous relationship between liberalism and nationalism is the historically appropriate approach. Generally, during the first half of the nineteenth century, liberalism and nationalism were mutually reinforcing; but by the second half of the century--and increasingly by the twentieth century--the concept of national unity could and did come into conflict with the liberal idea of pluralism, as did nationalist exclusivity with the idea of liberal tolerance. At the same time, the relationship between liberalism and nationalism was, by its very ambiguity, replete with bewildering variations and subtle nuances; and the rich and diverse material of the essays in the book seems to prove this point"

Historische Zeitschrift

"Das Buch hat eine lange Vorgeschichte. Enststanden ist ein 17 Beiträge umfassendes Werk zu den Modernisierungsvorstellungen, die sich mit Liberalismus und Nation in einer Vielzahl europäischer Staaten verbunden haben. Hinzu kommen eine kurze Einleitung des Hrsg.s und ein Vorwort von Michael Freeden. Folgende Staaten werden berücksichtigt: Westeuropa mit Schottland und England, Niederlande und Belgien, Mitteleuropa mit Deutschland, konzentriert auf Preussen, Schweiz und die Hansburgermonarchie. Zu letzterer werden fünf Beiträge geboten: je einer zu den deutschösterreichischen, polnischen und tschechischen Liberalen sowie zwei Studien zu Ungarn. Das dritte Kapitel zu Ost- und Südosteuropa enthält sechs Studien. Zwei zu Russland, je eine zu Serbien, Rumänien und dem Osmanischen Reich bzw. der türkischen Republik, und schiesslich vergleicht Mishkova die entwicklungen in Serbien, Bulgarien und Rumänien. Alle Beiträge enden mite einem Verzeichnis weiterführender Literatur und... more