At the core of nationalism, the nation has always been defined and celebrated as a fundamentally cultural community. This pioneering cultural history shows how artists and intellectuals since the days of Napoleon have celebrated and taken inspiration from an idealized nationality, and how this in turn has informed and influenced social and political nationalism. The book brings together tell-tale examples from across the entire European continent, from Dublin and Barcelona to Istanbul and Helsinki, and from cultural fields that include literature, painting, music, sports, world fairs and cinema as well as intellectual history. Charismatic Nations offers unique insights into how the unobtrusive soft power of nationally-inspired culture interacts with nationalism as a hard-edged political agenda. It demonstrates how, thanks to its pervasive cultural and 'unpolitical' presence, nationalism can shape-shift between romantic insurgency and nativist populism. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

‘A crowning achievement. Hardly anyone else would have the knowledge and the vision to grasp this immensity of phenomena, capture their complex interrelations, process them in a comparative fashion, and, most importantly, arrange them into a single, consecutive, coherent narrative. For it is one of the greatest strengths of Charismatic Nations that it unfolds pleasantly and effortlessly while incorporating myriad aspects into a coherent landscape of intellectual and social endeavors. [...] Charismatic Nations is a real tour de force with scope and erudition that have few parallels today; it is also a joy to read.'

Sándor Hites - Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Literary Studies of the HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities

‘This major study by the leading cultural historian of nationalism is a tour de force in its conceptual sophistication and its empirical breadth.  It is difficult to think of another contemporary scholar who could carry off this project.  Leerssen exhibits both an enormous linguistic prowess and an interdisciplinary mastery of the different romantic cultural genres.  A feature of the book is his vivid discussion of important individual figures, Herder and Hegel, Walter Scott, the Grimm Brothers, Liszt, Michelet etc in their contexts, linked to more abstract arguments about the repertoires of nationalism and changing currents. Interdisciplinary in its range, its audiences should go well beyond the field of nationalism, highlighting the enduring importance of romanticism in European society and politics.'

John Hutchinson Former Associate Professor (Reader) in Nationalism in Europe, LSE