In Monika Baár’s remarkable, comprehensive and comparative book, the author studies the role romantic historiography played in the formation of nationalisms in five East-Central-European political cultures. The book’s protagonists are five nineteenth century historians coming from this region: J. Lelewel (Polish), S. Dukantas (Lithuanian), J. Palacky (Czech), M. Horváth (Hungarian), and M. Kogalniceanu (Romanian) whose oeuvres had considerable influence both on the national historiographies of their culture as well as beyond the limits of the narrowly professional discourses. Baár’s book circumspectly reconceptualizes the traditional questions concerning nationalism, intelligence and historiography in East-Central-Europe, reconstructs the sociological and intellectual contexts of these five historians’ works in detail, and sheds new light on such old questions as the function of language in the national discourses, the narrativization of antiquity, feudalism, encountering otherness in...