Writing in 1996, Arjun Appadurai concluded “that the nation-state, as a complex modern political form, [was] on its last legs” (Modernity at Large, 19). Since that time, however, the supposedly moribund structure has proven surprisingly—and sometimes disturbingly—resilient, as popularist nationalisms have sprung up around the globe. Thus, as Dagmar Paulus and Ellen Pilsworth, the editors of this compact volume, remind us, “it is important to remember that nationalism was seen by many as a progressive and liberal idea in German thought of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries” (1–2). Paulus and Pilsworth provide a brief introduction to this collection of eight essays that were originally presented at a conference held at University College London in 2017. Rather than provide a sweeping theory of the German cultural nationalism that arose in the century before the founding of the unified political state, the articles offer a series of micro-analyses of individual authors in biographical and historical context. The diversity of approaches is a source of strength, as it reminds readers that nationalism was a fluid concept during this period that coexisted with other forms of identity.

The eight contributions are grouped into four thematically related pairs. In the first, “Eighteenth-Century Debates and Dilemmas,” Johannes Birgfeld examines the role of public prayers in national discourse, while Pilsworth focuses on Rudolph Zacharias Becker's Mildheimisches Liederbuch (1799/1815). Birgfeld begins in good philological fashion, exploring reference works by Zedler, Adelung, and others to conclude that “the German eighteenth century has no clear, undisputed, or dominant concept of the nation or the fatherland” (14). He then turns to the role of churches in the development of nationalist discourse, concentrating on Johann Joachim Spalding's “Gebet für Friedrichs Unterthanen” of July 1778. As Birgfeld observes, Spalding was not an ardent supporter of King Frederick II and did not write his patriotic prayer voluntarily. Birgfeld uses this example to contest those who have drawn a direct line from early manifestations of Prussian patriotism during the Seven Years’ War to the nationalist Wars of Liberation. The case of Spalding suggests rather a reluctance on the part of at least some intellectuals to contribute to Prussian propaganda in the 1780s, perhaps because their patriotic engagement during the previous decade led only to “disillusionment, disenchantment, disappointment, and self-criticism” (29).

Pilsworth begins her essay with a brief look at the debate between patriotism and cosmopolitanism in a 1774 text by Christian Friedrich Schubart, in which the renowned representative of the Enlightenment criticizes nationalism as a fanatical ideology that leads only to war. She then turns to Becker, a social activist, public educator, and publicist, who aimed his works at a broad, popular audience. He was fervently committed to improving the lives of the poor and oppressed, although he stopped short of advocating political rebellion and remained leery of nationalist warfare against external foes. The 1799 version of his Liederbuch contains several patriotic songs, but they are almost entirely peaceful and devoid of anti-French rhetoric. By 1815, however, his collection added several songs glorifying death for the fatherland, although his personal reservations about war remained the same. Thus, Pilsworth contends that the new Liederbuch of 1815 does not mark Becker's turn toward militant nationalism; instead, he included poems from diverse perspectives sometimes different from his own in the effort to encourage critical thinking among his readers.

Part two turns to views of Germany by those outside its borders. Caroline Mannweiler shows that both Friedrich Schlegel and Heinrich von Kleist reacted to Paris as the empty center of bourgeois-capitalist society. As an alternative to modern France, Schlegel looks to the German nation as an organic entity rooted in past traditions but capable of future growth, while Kleist yearns for simpler times and uncorrupted nature, without, however, sharing Schlegel's romantic nationalism. Ironically, however, Schlegel was willing to commodify his romantic anti-capitalism in publications for his journal, Europa, whereas Kleist sought temporary escape in a Rousseau-inspired Swiss idyll—only to publish patriotic works of his own within a few years.

Dagmar Paulus turns to Fanny Tarnow's Letters to Friends from a Journey to Petersburg (1819). In addition to physical difficulties and dangers experienced by all travelers of the period, women faced the additional burden of disapproval from men who thought they should remain at home and certainly keep silent about their experiences if they did venture forth into the world. In deference to these prejudices, Tarnow adopts a self-deprecatory tone at the outset of her letters, but that stance serves as a shield for more outspoken views. Her works reproduce widespread stereotypes about the “barbaric” Russians, to which she posits German nature as a salutary alternative. This idea of the nation rooted in nature contrasts with Benedict Anderson's concept of the imagined community constructed by a given society.

The third pair of essays is devoted to German-Jewish voices in the nationalism debate. Anita Bunyan looks at liberal German-Jewish writers who sought democratic reform in a unified nation-state. For Ludwig Börne, freedom from political repression for all Germans transcended the problem of Jewish emancipation. Moritz Hartmann wrote political poetry that proposed national unification as the cure for aristocratic absolutism, although he was deeply disillusioned by the failed 1848 Revolution. Berthold Auerbach experienced similar disappointment. He combined cosmopolitanism with the belief that discrete nations could contribute to human progress, but his delight in Germany's political unification soon yielded to concern about the rising tide of racist antisemitism.

Alex Marshall examines the socialist and proto-Zionist Moses Hess, the first Jew to propose a secular Jewish state in Palestine. In the process, the nation-state model of politics triumphed over socialist internationalism. Hess's concept of the nation was fluid, as his language oscillates between terms such as race, nation, Volk, and Stamm. He admires French cosmopolitanism and is leery of German illiberalism, which eventually led him to abandon his allegiance to Germany and declare his loyalty to Jewish patriotism. Inspired by the Italian unification movement (Risorgimento), Hess placed emotional commitment at the heart of his nationalist sentiments.

In the final section, “Looking Back, Looking Forward: Nineteenth Century Contests of Memory and Progress,” Dirk Göttsche contests the view that German patriots rose as one to defeat Napoleon's armies during the Wars of Liberation. While this nationalist myth became the dominant narrative after German unification, earlier literature inspired by the anti-Napoleonic Wars “paints a much more differentiated picture” (149). Drawing on an exceptionally wide range of literary texts written between 1813 and 1871, Göttsche shows how “different strands of nationalism, liberalism, and regionalism interact before the national-liberal discourse becomes dominant” in the 1850s (150). Ernest Schonfield, finally, returns to Ludwig Börne's work of the 1830s. Contesting Heine's caricature of Börne as a clumsy bear in Atta Troll, Schonfield underscores the nimble wit of an author who championed a cosmopolitan version of German national identity.

Taken together, these carefully researched and clearly written essays shed new light on particular aspects of German nationalism and remind us of the hope that many invested in a concept that promised progressive reform in a hierarchical and often unjust society.