Volume 296, Issue 1 -

This article analyses the 1692 Glencoe massacre, in which royal troops slaughtered dozens of members of the Scottish highland clan Macdonald, as a complex lieu de mémoire . Its complexity stems from several factors. First, it is linked to two conflicting narratives, one of them interpreting the massacre as a result of a clan feud, the other claiming it to be a crime ordered from ‚outside‘. Second, conflicting concepts of ‚nation‘ within the United Kingdom have played a role, as well as the fact that Glencoe is at the same time a cultural, political, commercialised and diasporic lieu de mémoire . The massacre served to assure – at different times – Britons (or specific British partisans) of their high level of civilisation, Scots of their oppression by the English, Macdonalds and Campbells of their affiliation to intercontinental solidarity groups. From a conceptual point of view, the case study shows that lieux de mémoire should be analysed departing from their memorial complexity rather than from a preconceived identity (as has been done in many studies influenced by Pierre Nora’s concept of national history). At least three dimensions should be attended to: differing narratives linked to one lieu de mémoire as well as their performative materialisation as memorial culture, different groups participating in the culture linked to a specific lieu de memoire , and different social subsystems impacted by a lieu de mémoire .

How could Europe become the centre of global power in the nineteenth century? By combining both national and global history, the author identifies the rise of the nation state as the main requirement. Only nation states which promised the whole of their societies the chance of civic participation were able to finance the build-up of arms that were necessary for the active participation in world politics. Success in world politics meant the formation of a colonial empire by military means. The ability to wage war was a counted as a sign of modernity of a state and its society. A prerequisite was, however, that after the Napoleonic era, wars were fought outside of Europe. Inside the continent, there were only regional conflicts. When this was no longer feasible, the „European century“ ended in unprecedented bloodshed.

Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897) is often considered an „unsystematic“ historian who rejected the rational, teleological philosophies of history that dominated the nineteenth century and practised a highly subjective, descriptive approach to the past. This reputation is based on a series of lectures, delivered 1868–1871 and later published under the title „Reflections on History“, in which Burckhardt vehemently renounces theoretical abstraction and conceptualization: he postulates that the task of the historian is the intuitive acquisition and vivid depiction of particular events, not their „subordination“ under general concepts or abstract ideas. Burckhardt’s major historical works, notably the „Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy“ and the „History of Greek Civilization“, are said to bear out his unwillingness to conceptualize and generalize. This essay challenges these assumptions and throws new light on Burckhardt’s place in the historiographical debates of his time. The principle of generalization, as is argued here, in fact played a central role in Burckhardt’s historical thought no less than in his cultural histories. His understanding and his methods of generalization are examined in the context of earlier theories of „universal history“, notably Hegel’s, but also in light of Burckhardt’s deep-rooted fear of modernity.

Nineteenth-century diplomats are often described as backward-looking traditionalists, rooted in the traditions of the ancien regime, their residencies grand houses like islands in a changing world. This essay examines this assessment in the light of new primary sources. It also tests the usefulness of generational theory when applied to late nineteenth-century diplomats. The author considers whether diplomats participated in the discourse of their contemporaries and whether „diplomacy of the generations“ existed. An analysis of the lives of selected diplomats indicates that their world view was similar to that of other elites. Generation-specific perceptions of foreign policy did exist but were the exception rather than the rule between 1871 and 1914. Examples of foreign policy shaped by generational perception do not fit the model of political generations suggested by Karl Mannheim. Patterns of perception that span generations are more common. Generational theory therefore has limited value for explaining pre-war international relations. Cohort analysis is much more useful in explaining the long-term genesis of collective assumptions. One such example is the steadily increasing conviction within German diplomacy that war would be the only way out of a political dead end.