It is not surprising, then, if German historians paid massive attention to the state. But not in the sense that British or English historians did. There the state not only existed but, by the time Macaulay's five-volume history appeared in the 1840s and 50s, had also reached something approaching world domination. Certainly it had put the major problems of the past behind it. Above all, by virtue of the Glorious Revolution and the wisdom of Macaulay's favored Whig Party, it had settled the question of the Protestant succession and underpinned the constitutional and evolving role of parliament. It was only necessary to explain the mystery of 1688 and the greatness of William of Orange (the Dutch prince who that year took possession of the English throne) to the literate and patriotic British public of the nineteenth century. But contemporary German historians, often Anglophile (Treitschke would be an exception) and deeply influenced by Macaulay, were either engaged in actively bringing all this about in their own nation or, after 1871, explaining the miracle by which it had come to pass. And as an aside, we might note that they were also likely, both pre- and post-Macaulay, to praise William of Orange, although it was something only done in passing, while its terms of reference were, tellingly, not historical but (well-nigh) contemporary. For instance, we are told that Scharnhorst's officers compared him to the Dutch prince.

There is a further difference between the British and German approaches that is exceptionally apposite. The German historians, while paralleling Macaulay in many ways, pay far more attention to culture, the arts, and literature. For instance, Heinrich von Treitschke, in his seven-volume history from the late nineteenth century, finds it necessary to explain these matters in some detail. But this is entirely consistent, simply because in the German case there is no doubt that culture (like idealism in general) precedes nationhood.