Abstract
The ‘army and society history’ of the Napoleonic period has been predictably rooted in nation-making; for the fascination of these wars for historians has always been the extent to which they were ‘wars of the nations’ opening the way towards a modern age of state authority yet widely conceded citizenship. In British work on ‘forging the nation’, Linda Colley’s Britons (1992) remains seminal. It depicted the long war against France and Napoleon as climactic, the British becoming totally confident of their national identity against the French ‘other’ and their armed nation compelling progress towards the broader political nation that soon afterwards came into being.1 The emergence of a patriotism that over-arched ethnicity, sub-British nationality, religion, class and party was implicit in her narrative. This ‘British’ patriotism welled up most spectacularly when participation in national defence was required and in the moment of final victory.
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Notes
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© 2009 John E. Cookson
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Cookson, J.E. (2009). Regimental Worlds: Interpreting the Experience of British Soldiers during the Napoleonic Wars. In: Forrest, A., Hagemann, K., Rendall, J. (eds) Soldiers, Citizens and Civilians. War, Culture and Society, 1750–1850. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230583290_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230583290_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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