Transnational Histories of the 'Royal Nation'

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xx

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2. The Royal Nation in Global Perspective

   • Charlotte Backerra, Milinda Banerjee, Cathleen Sarti

   Pages 1-17

3. Conceptualizing the Royal Nation

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 19-19

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   2. The Royal Nation and Global Intellectual History: Monarchic Routes to Conceptualizing National Unity

      • Milinda Banerjee

      Pages 21-43

   3. Resilient in Adversity: The Monarchical State in Prussia and Sardinia-Piedmont, 1847–51

      • Amerigo Caruso

      Pages 45-66

   4. Nepalese Monarchy in an Age of Codification: Kingship, Patriotism, and Legality in the Nepalese Code of 1854

      • Simon Cubelic, Rajan Khatiwoda

      Pages 67-86

   5. Loss of Control: Kaiser Wilhelm II, Mass Media, and the National Identity of the Second German Reich

      • Martin Kohlrausch

      Pages 87-107

   6. The Comparative Endurance and Legacy of Morocco’s Royal Nation

      • David Mednicoff

      Pages 109-130

4. Visualizing and Performing the Royal Nation

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 131-131

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   2. From the White Tsar to the Russian Tsar: Monarchy and Russian Nationalism in Tsarist Turkestan, 1867–1917

      • Ulrich Hofmeister

      Pages 133-154

   3. The Monarchs’ New Clothes: Transnational Flows and the Fashioning of the Modern Japanese and Siamese Monarchies

      • David Malitz

      Pages 155-175

   4. ‘Mein Hessenland blühe und in ihm die Kunst’. Ernst Ludwig’s Darmstädter Künstlerkolonie: Building Nationhood through the Arts and Crafts

      • Anne Anderson

      Pages 177-202

   5. Performing Monarchy and Spanish Nationalism (1902–13)

      • Javier Moreno-Luzón

      Pages 203-222

   6. The Dragon Flag in the Republican Nation: The Dowager Empress Longyu’s Death Ritual in 1913 and Contested Political Legitimacy in Early Republican China

      • Jia Feng

      Pages 223-241

5. Remembering the Royal Nation

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 243-243

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   2. Losing Monarchs: The Legacy of German and English National Historiography

      • Charlotte Backerra

      Pages 245-265

   3. Constructing Queenship in Early Nineteenth-Century French Historiography

      • Heta Aali

      Pages 267-286

   4. Celebrating and Reinventing Brazil: Monarchy and Nation in the Works of Afonso Arinos, 1897–1900

      • Alexandre Lazzari

      Pages 287-307

   5. Catalonia: Medieval Monarchs Testifying for Democracy, Nation, and Europe

      • Daniel Wimmer

      Pages 309-329

   6. ‘Para-Royalty’ Between Nationalism and Transnationalism: Russian Images of Personal Rule

      • Eva Marlene Hausteiner

      Pages 331-353

This book challenges existing accounts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in which political developments are explained in terms of the rise of the nation-state. While monarchies are often portrayed as old-fashioned – as things of the past – we argue that modern monarchies have been at the centre of nation-construction in many parts of the world. Today, roughly a quarter of states define themselves as monarchies as well as nation-states – they are Royal Nations. This is a global phenomenon. This volume interrogates the relationship between royals and ‘their’ nations with transnational case studies from Asia, Africa, Europe as well as South America. The seventeen contributors discuss concepts and structures, visual and performative representations, and memory cultures of modern monarchies in relation to rising nationalist movements. This book thereby analyses the worldwide significance of the Royal Nation.

• Royalty
• Political cultures
• Nationalism
• Cultural identities
• Area studies
• Monarchy
• Modern Europe

“In its totality, this brilliant, timely book succeeds in recasting monarchy as a truly global and shockingly modern mechanism of political theory and practice.” (Kiri Paramore, Leiden University, the Netherlands)

“This is an unusually coherent exercise in conducting comparative history on a global scale.” (Nile Green, UCLA, USA)

• Presidency University, Kolkata, India

  Milinda Banerjee

• University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany

  Charlotte Backerra, Cathleen Sarti

Milinda Banerjee is Assistant Professor at Presidency University, Kolkata, India. 


Charlotte Backerra is Lecturer for Early Modern European History at the University of Stuttgart and at the University of Mainz, Germany.


Cathleen Sarti is Lecturer for Early Modern European History at the University of Mainz, Germany.

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