Page "Historiography and nationalism" Paragraph 5

This model of scholarship focusing on detailed historical and linguistic investigations of the origins of a nation, set by the founders of the MGH, was imitated throughout Europe.

In this framework, historical phenomena were interpreted as they related to the development of the nation-state ; the state was projected into the past.

National histories are thus expanded to cover everything that has ever happened within the largest extent of the expansion of a nation, turning Mousterian hunter-gatherers into incipient Frenchmen.

Conversely, historical developments spanning many current countries may be ignored, or analyzed from narrow parochial viewpoints.