ABSTRACT
National identities, like other varieties of collective identities, are elusive phenomena that are notoriously difficult to define. I would venture to propose that one point of access is through the images that come to expression in texts and statements encountered in the public as well as in the private realm. From a theoretical point of view this book deals with individuals' images of what their own state polity is and ought to be, or to use a more precise term, what will henceforth be referred to as national self-images. It is my contention that the study of national self-images also offers a comparatively practicable way of getting closer to national identities.
