Abstract
‘There is a tendency against which not even the historian can always guard himself, to transfer the preoccupations and habits of thought of the present into the contemplation of the past. And there is, especially, the desire, unconscious, or half-conscious, to justify the State of which the historian is a citizen, the patriotism which it claims, the society, the civilization, the religion which seem to be its distinctive marks. The idea that ... [significant events] should have resulted from the accidents of war, that ... [men] should not have been the free chosers of their destiny ... —that idea seems to have in it something derogatory to the dignity of ... nationhood, something almost blasphemous when it is supposed to have decided ... [a major turn in the history of a people].’1
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© 1955 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Meyer, H.C. (1955). Conclusion. In: Mitteleuropa. International Scholars Forum, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-2469-8_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-2469-8_13
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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