It’s Time to Move on: A Reply to John Connelly

This article responds to John Connelly’s recent article on how historians should treat the history of ideas and practices of nationhood and nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe and the Habsburg Monarchy. The article questions the presumption of a non-ethnic West and Connelly’s rejection of the strategic use of national indifference in interpreting the social history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It also suggests that adding an analysis of imperial institutions would help Connelly better understand the complex development of nationalist movements over time.