Reich, Nation, Volk: Early Modern Perspectives by Joachim Whaley
The terms Reich, Nation, and Volk occupy an uneasy place in the historical-political vocabulary of the Germans. Each of them acquired a deeply ambivalent aura as a result of their frequent employment in the period of the Second and Third Reichs. This article examines the origins of and interaction between these three key concepts in the early modern period (roughly, 1450-1815). Recovering those meanings and contexts, ...