The old practice of historiographical nationalism, the interpretation of the collective past of peoples compounded by national borders as an inspiration for patriotism, is an outdated and unscholarly method of studying history. It should be avoided in favour of the pursuit of a constructivist history that is free from the corrupting influence of national pride and does not push the agenda of creating it.

What separates individual nations as entities apart from territorial boundaries is an imagined sense of shared identity, usually constructed from history through reference to actual events or to myths of national character derived from them, such as the British “stiff upper lip”. While in early nineteenth-century Europe nationalism played a part in dispelling the feudalism that had underpinned the continent’s societies in the past millennium or so, since then it has become the key cause and motivation behind the wars and genocides of the twentieth and late nineteenth centuries.

The role of historians and historiographical nationalism throughout these events is that of formulators of the sentiments used to justify such actions or the attitudes that taint the events that lead up to them. This is of course not to say that historians actually seek to manipulate, but that they are frequently corrupted by other historians and the cultural devices that feed into nationalism which are bred by them. Sometimes however historiographical nationalism has been used very deliberately to adjust national opinion, most notably in the case of Nazi Germany.

Historiographical nationalism has its roots in the birth of the modern concept of nationalism itself with the revolutions of the late eighteenth century, where the first histories of individual nation states began to emerge from Enlightenment historians. Later Romantic historians in the nineteenth century began to focus for the first time on the unique qualities of each nation, which would form prototypes of what would later be adopted as “national identities”.

Although this is a simplified view – historiographical nationalism outside of Europe has played another role as a catalyst for independence movements and revolutions for former European colonies, and some historians were aware of and tried to resist the influence of nationalism all along – it did remain the primary approach to historical study until the second half of the twentieth century.

The fresh generation of historians born in the 1950s and 60s led the rise of constructivism, a method of thought that when applied to historical study allows the historian to think outside of national characters and see with fresh light the twine that holds together nationalist beliefs.  However, while this trend is apparent within scholarly history, the new phenomenon of popular historians in the media and literature aimed at the casual reader points to the opposite, as can be observed by the popularity of figures such as Niall Ferguson and others who are not primarily historians at all, such as Jeremy Paxman and Andrew Marr.

New fields of history as well as new attitudes have contributed to historiographical nationalism’s decline, too. The stronger focus through the emergence of women’s history and anthropology on the history of the formerly ignored vast majority of the human population has also helped to dispel old national myths primarily based around “great men”. Through these fields, the average citizen is more concerned with the history of their own ancestors rather than those that ruled them and their actions.

Politicians, then, should recognize the poor record of historiographical nationalism as a source of collective identity and should aim for other ways to achieve solidarity beyond national borders, with the aim of tackling problems that go beyond those borders – such as the improvement of living standards for all, including the elimination of famine and the reversal of inevitable environmental decline.