The Cult of the Nation in France: Inventing Nationalism, 1680-1800 [Paperback]

David A. Bell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0674012372 | ISBN-13: 978-0674012370

Using 18th-century France as a case study, David Bell offers an alternative argument about the origins of nationalism. Before the 18th century, the very idea of nation building - a central component of nationalism - did not exist. During this period, leading French intellectual and political figures came to see perfect national unity as a critical priority, and so sought ways to endow all French people with the same language, laws, customs and values. The period thus gave rise to the first large-scale nationalist programme in history. The revolutionaries hoped that patriotism and national sentiment would replace religion as the new binding force in public life. Yet paradoxically, the example of cultural remodelling they followed in their nation-building quest was that of the Catholic Church, in its ambitious Counter-Reformation efforts to evangelize the French peasantry. In the new era, the population would be bound together not in a single Church, but in a single French nation. In this work, Bell offers a comprehensive survey of patriotism and national sentiment in early modern France, and shows how the dialectical relationship between nationalism and religion left a complex legacy that still resonates in debates over French national identity today.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Bell (history, Johns Hopkins Univ.; Lawyers and Citizens: The Making of a Political Elite in Old Regime France) delineates the history of nationalism in France, tracing its origins to the 17th century. He shows how in 18th-century France, political and intellectual leaders made perfect national unity a priority, allowing the construction of the nation to take precedence over other political tasks. The goal was to provide all French people with the same language, laws, customs, and values. Bell argues that while the French leaders hoped that patriotism and national sentiment would replace religion as the binding force, it was actually religion that was a major (but not exclusive) factor in helping the French see the world around them. This period of history was the beginning of the first large-scale nationalist program. Bell also shows how the relationship between nationalism and religion contributes to the French national identity debate today. Bell's comprehensive and well-documented book is written in an accessible style and offers access to a web site with more detailed bibliography and appendixes. Recommended for French and European history collections. Mary Salony, West Virginia Northern Community Coll., Wheeling
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

A notable addition to the expanding literature on nationalism in general and of French nationalism in particular, The Cult of the Nation in France explores how national affiliation became part of individual identity. It demonstrates the connections between nationalism and religion, without falling into the simple trap of treating nationalism as another religion. Against the present-day challenges faced by French republican nationalism, Bell insightfully examines the paradoxical process whereby the French came to posit themselves as a union of politically and spiritually like-minded citizens.
--Joan B. Landes, Pennsylvania State University (20010901)

A formidably intelligent and beautifully written analysis of how the French came to perceive their nation as a political construction. Its breadth, together with its highly original discussion of the role of religion, makes The Cult of the Nation in France essential reading both for students of nationalism and for anyone wanting to understand current French debates on culture, ethnicity, and identity.
--Linda Colley, London School of Economics and Political Science (20011125)

David Bell is one of the most talented young historians working in any field. This fascinating, brilliantly argued, and beautifully written study demonstrates the multi-stranded origins of the concept of the nation in France. Bell's major contribution is to place the timing of this crucial evolution well before the Revolution of 1789. He never loses sight of the linguistic and cultural complexity of France, bringing to a conclusion the story of French nationalism in our era.
--John Merriman, Yale University (20021001)

Bell delineates the history of nationalism in France, tracing its origins to the 17th century. He shows how in 18th-century France, political and intellectual leaders made perfect national unity a priority, allowing the construction of the nation to take precedence over other political tasks. The goal was to provide all French people with the same language, laws, customs, and values. Bell argues that while the French leaders hoped that patriotism and national sentiment would replace religion as the binding force, it was actually religion that was a major (but not exclusive) factor in helping the French see the world around them. This period of history was the beginning of the first large-scale nationalist program. Bell also shows how the relationship between nationalism and religion contributes to the French national identity debate today. Bell's comprehensive and well-documented book is written in an accessible style...Recommended for French and European history collections.
--Mary Salony (Library Journal 20021001)

At the center of Bell's subtle and intricate argument is religion. Religion, he suggests, was changing in the 18th century. And with men less likely to see God as an interventionist presence in their daily lives and more likely to stress God's distant, inscrutable quality, space was opened up for an autonomous realm of human action, described by a series of interconnected words: society, public opinion, civilization, fatherland and nation.
--Richard Vinen (New York Times Book Review )

David Bell has interesting things to say about the French kindred and about an important aspect of their life together. The Cult of the Nation in France is about the way a particular kind of togetherness and a novel kind of identity were implanted, grew (and may have begun to wither) in France's fertile soil. The nation, he argues, is no spontaneous growth but a political artifact: not organic like a tree but constructed like a city.
--Eugen Weber (Los Angeles Times )

Bell argues in his excellent analysis of the 18th-century conceptual birth of French nationalism that nationalism emerged at a point when French intellectuals increasingly came to see God as distant from human affairs and sough to separate religious passions from political life...A masterful, thought-provoking [study].
--P. G. Wallace (Choice )

This excellent book is at once a valuable account of the development of the concept of the nation in France and an important example of the use that can be made of the culture of print...Bell argues that right-wing nationalism has belonged consistently to a minority and that there has been a basic continuity in French republican nationalism over the past two centuries, views that not all will share, but arguments that testify to the importance of this well-crafted work.
--Jeremy Black (History )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (September 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674012372
• ISBN-13: 978-0674012370
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #732,832 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A compelling argument that nationalism's origins pre-date the 19th Century, May 29, 2009

By 

Todd Bartholomew (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Cult of the Nation in France: Inventing Nationalism, 1680-1800 (Paperback)

The Fall of Communism and the resultant unleashing of repressed nationalism spurred renewed interest in the origins and causes of nationalism. The sudden groundswell of nationalism was as though a manifestation of Albert Camus' quote that "It is a well-known fact that we always recognize our homeland when we are about to lose it." Many historians and sociologists date the origins of nationalism as an ideology, sentiment or social movement to the early years of the 19th Century, but this is a contentious subject, and one which Bells seeks to disprove by utilizing French history as his vehicle. Bell argues the roots of nationalism predate the 19th Century and he posits that the origins of French nationalism dated to the 18th Century era of the ancien regime and nascent efforts at forging French unity and a common national identity.

Bell's premise that the roots of French nationalism predated the French Revolution isn't as shocking as it appears as other historians focusing on France and other countries have advanced similar hypotheses. Bell's argument is bolstered by Lynn Hunt's book "Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution," which argues that the French revolutionaries sought to supplant the trappings and imagery reflecting the ancien regime's national identity with own imagery reflecting republican ideals and a refined sense of national identity. Hunt confirms Bell's argument that French national identity had sufficiently evolved to a point that it warranted a threat to the Revolution and had to be suppressed and eradicated. But Bell is also asking larger questions, such as why the need to create a national identity arose, just as much as he is asking when those efforts began. The close interconnection of king, country, and religion Bell describes was not unique to France, but occurred in Great Britain and elsewhere in Europe. The desire of the Catholic Church to counter the Reformation spurred the forging of this national identity, but it was tempered in the aftermath of the French Wars of Religion (1562-1598) as the centrality of religion began to wane. As this paradigm shift occurred it was only natural that the political leadership of France sought to consolidate and integrate the various holdings of the kingdom, in the process creating a French citizen out of the disparate ethnic and linguistic groups within its borders. Thus, the ancien regime created the blueprint in how to remake society in the desired image; something later revolutionaries were all too willing to seize upon.

In some respects "The Cult of the Nation" reads like a straightforward chronologically ordered political history, focusing on the political class's efforts at forging a national identity. Yet bell is not seeking to create a meta-narrative, but instead seeks to question what it is that makes a nation a nation. Bell isn't so much arguing the success or failure in creating a French national identity so much as outlining the means utilized in attempting it. As a result, Bell's focus on the process and the outcome rends "The Cult of the Nation" more of a traditional history, albeit one that challenges conventional wisdom on the origin of nationalism. His "great-man" approach and top-down view of political theory and history is distinctly retro, but when you are writing about the creation of national identity by the political apparatus it is hard to avoid this approach. Bell is also silent on the relative merits of the Enlightenment era which spurred the desire for creating a national identity, opting not to acknowledge or enter that debate. Bell however does make a compelling argument on pushing back the origins of nationalism that cannot be denied.

1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Getting In Deep, February 23, 2006

By 

Anthony E. Crosby, Jr. "Tony Crosby" (Frostburg Maryland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Cult of the Nation in France: Inventing Nationalism, 1680-1800 (Paperback)

This work, by historian David Bell of Johns Jopkins University, provides a "deep" review of the nature and develpment of French patriotism and nationhood in this period. To put it simply, for Professor Bell there are no simple answers and oftimes one needs to hold onto multicausal explanations for understanding the events of this era. Of particular interest to me is how Bell uses the Jumonville encounter, which occurred in western Pennsylvania, to explain part of the French "gestalt."