National self-determination and the formation of nation-states has been the preferred liberal solution to the nationality problem in Central and Eastern Europe. Historians have played a prominent role in constructing nationalist narratives to legitimize the new nation-states arising from the corpse of the multinational Habsburg empire. The alternative liberal and historiographical tradition which privileges multinational states over nation-states, most famously associated with Lord Acton, has been relatively ignored.
Dr Ng addresses this imbalance by concentrating on the lives and works...