ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book attempts to convey how certain identifications, boundaries, and conceptualising of interests established in nineteenth century Europe persist in the present among new forms of international organization. It is concerned with nations and nationalism which have inspired a burgeoning field of scholarship, and investigates the concept of culture, its relation to nations and to a European polity. The book discusses the domestic polity and politics in Germany. It deals with German foreign policy, in which from 1949 the Federal Republic of Germany played by ground rules firstly set by the US and USSR and then, joined in an attempt to forge post-war authority and prestige for itself, by France. The book examines the Franco-German relationship which, while it has been the main axis of European integration, also has many other tangents.
