This book comparatively examines how the writing of history by individuals and groups, historians, politicians and journalists has been used to ''legitimate'' the nation-state against socialist, communist and catholic internationalism in the modern era. Covering the whole of Western Europe, the book includes discussion of: history as legitimation in post-revolutionary France; unity and confederation in the Italian Risorgimento; German historians as critics of Prussian conservatism; right-wing history writing in France between the wars; British historiography from Macauley to Trevelyan; and the search for national identity in the reunified Germany.