ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that in the main geographic forays into the field of nationalism have tended to tell the victor's side of the story and have left the vanquished to cry in the wilderness. It highlights two tendencies which serve to gloss over the origins of selected nationalist movements and to reduce the significance of nationalist historiography in our reconstruction of the past. It emphasise the significant role of key nationalist actors. Religion was a central plank of some nationalist theorising. Tracing one's cultural lineage to the Judaeo-Christian origins of European civilisation was an obvious means of legitimising one's national past in a common heritage. The chapter examines the three senses, illustrated by a leading Welsh nationalist theoretician. It focuses on Christian idealism as a source of socio-political action for it figures prominently in the arguments and theories of prominent nationalists such as Sabino de Arana, Saunders Lewis and Daniel O'Connell.
