Notes

Nationalism proved the most combustible ideology of the 19 century, and it is essential to

your understanding of political and diplomatic events after 1800. Spread by the example of

the French Revolution, nationalism initially focused on cultural revival and celebration of

traditions. Long-divided Germany in particular experienced a wave of cultural nationalism

fed by the Napoleonic Wars. Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) replaced the political–

judicial conception of state with an organic folk-nation best represented by the term

Volksgeist, or “spirit of the people.” Germans celebrated their music and folklore, as with

Beethoven’s symphonies or the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales. Such cultural nationalism

eventually took on political overtones. The German philosopher Hegel (1770–1831)

glorified the national state as the march of destiny through history. History itself consisted

of a clash of opposing ideas, called the dialectic, which pointed the way to a new synthesis

—the idea of German national unity.