Fatherlands explores the nature of identity in nineteenth-century Germany, and has crucial implications for our understanding of nationalism, German unification and the German state in the modern era. It approaches these questions from a new and important angle, that of the non national territorial state, exploring the state-building process in non-Prussian Germany. The issues covered range from railway construction and German industrialization, to the modernization of German monarchy, the emergence of a free press, the development of a modern educational system, and the role of monuments,...

Examining the politics of the French Revolutionary tradition during the nineteenth century Bourbon Restoration and early July Monarchy, Robert Alexander argues that political struggle was not confined to the elite. The Restoration Liberal Opposition developed a reform tradition based on legal organization and persuasion, which would prove far more effective in achieving progressive change than the revolutionary tradition of conspiracy and insurrection. Alexander analyzes relations among the Liberal Opposition, ultra-royalists and the state to support his claims.