Nation-states and regions

A proposal for a comparative and transnational history

Abstract

This paper discusses the way historians have dealt with the history of states, nations and territories in Europe. It advances a proposal on how to meet the historiographical challenges posed by the history of the nation-state and the national histories created since the 19th century onwards. The author emphasises both the necessity of an approach based on comparative history and the possibilities of a transnational history, which will enable an approximation to those realities, but also as a way of understanding the history of Europe.