Re: sprouts of capitalism

A comment on Jim Frieda's posting:

I am basically coming from a reading of Blackbourn and Eley's _The
>Peculiarities of German History_ and also from a Liah Greenfeld's
>_Nationalism: Five Paths to Modernity_. The first uses the term
>"British model" to delineate and critique the assumptions of German
>historical arguments which find Germany lacking a liberal
>institutions: a parliamentary tradition and the organs of civil
>society (pp. 70-71). Eley here notes that this model has long been
>called into question by social historians of England but still acts
>(acted ca 1983) as normative setting the standards of German
>historical debate for certain major scholars, at least.

They are referring to Hans Ulrich Wehler, Juergen Kocka and other historians
of the Bieldefelder School - very great historians of Germany, not very good
comparative historians, although Kocka's comparative work on `blue collar
workers' is in many view the best treatment of the theme.

>The continuing force of what Eley termed the "British societal model"
>is seen in Greenfeld's book, which got a good reception. It is a fine
>text and I want to give her credit for much of it, which I enjoyed and
>learned from. Greenfeld argues that the model of the nation, stemming
>from England (which she tellingly terms "God's firstborn" in a subtle
>argument on the links of religion and nationalism) proceeded through a
>series of copies from France, Germany, Russia, and to the US. England,
>for example, has particular merit as the birthplace of a rational way
>of life as is evidenced in its superior language--destined to spread
>to the world.

That's a good example of the innate nationalism, yes jingoism, of much - if
not most - historic writing coming from England (mind you NOT Britain) which
is this engrained in English writing that the English don't even notice and
which comes from BOTH `left' and `right' writers (for E.P. Thompson, say,
was as much a `Whig' as Thomas Babbington Macaulay - without him even
noting -) This kind of writing always reminds me of first Lieutenant Checov
on the bridge of the Enterprise where Checov always added  to everything
"invented by a Russian, of course."

And so it is with `God's firstborn'. This whole argument is simply 'Jingo'
rubbish - if there's a single candidate for oldest nation-state in Western
Europe it's Portugal and if there's a candidate for propagating the model
for the `unified nation-state' (which BRITAIN never was) it's revolutionary
France - or make that Napeontic France for the revolution had little to do
with
it -.

However, I find the model of `nationalism', that's a single people under the
same law, `spreading outward from France' - which, sadly, all writers on
nationalism now seem to embrace - largely rubbish too: the Dutch
`patriotten' were advocating exactly the model of the unified nation state
ten years before the French revolution and, I think, so did Pombal already
in the 1760's in Portugal. But who - who ever - would even DARE to argue
small, poor, Portugal might have been AHEAD of the rest of Europe ???? Not
even the Portuguese I would daresay - whose historic literature on things
after 1500 is full of self-denigration..

>I find it ironic that both England and the US are for her models,
>while the rest are submerged in a politics of ressentiment. This
>echoes the notion of Western vs. Eastern (or poltical vs. cultural)
>nationalism of Hans Kohn--the former being integrative and civic while
>the latter is divisive and violent, torn by ethnic strife.

Rubbish - where is Ireland located again ?

It is my understanding
>that a ws perspective, and I would add a postcolonial one, would see
>Britian (I should be saying Britain here, I guess) and the prestige of
>the British revolution into a liberal modernity as very much an effect
>of ideological dominance in some sense rather than a result of actual
>democratic practice.

Let's not hope so - it would amount to importing an English nationalism,
which is I think more insidious (because so little noticed) than any sexism
or colonialism.

>This is an old discussion, I think, but I am interested in
>looking at it in terms of its nationalist implications, which may put
>new light on the terms of the debate.

Indeed it is - but since the whole present literature on nationalism is so
infused with self-congratulatory English nationalism I find practically the
whole present literature useless - I think Friederich Meinecke's
Weltbuergertum und Nationalstaat from - I believe - 1920 is much better than
anything recent I read - which also prompted the angry tone of this reply
for which I excuse in advance

In a hurry

R.J. Barendse