Unintended Affinities

This excellent book combines in-depth textual analysis with innovative contextualization and conceptualization. By making subtle and often counter-intuitive observations the author complicates and significantly advances our knowledge of nineteenth-century history-writing. It will be of relevance to a wide range of audiences, including those interested in Polish, German and European history, historiography and nineteenth-century studies.

Adam Kożuchowski has written a valuable comparative history of how the German and Polish national narratives in the nineteenth century were constructed on the ruins of two unique political communities that were erased from the map of Europe: the Holy Roman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He compellingly illuminates an era’s ‘faith in the power of history’ to summon strength out of weakness.​