Contesting Preußen: Co-authoring Images of Prussia in Anglo-German Intellectual Exchange, c. 1830–1863

Abstract

Research on national images and stereotypes consistently points out the mutual dependency of self-image and the image of the other: Thus, enmity towards Catholic France played a decisive role in forming a British sense of national consciousness during the eighteenth century. A similar case has been made for German national identity, which was critically moulded during the Napoleonic Wars and beyond by a process of rhetorical dissociation from neighbouring France.1 British perceptions of Germany and Prussia during the nineteenth century were certainly much less emotionally charged.2 Nevertheless, as antagonism between Britain and Germany rose at the turn of the century, public dis-