Oliver Zimmer examines the ways in which the Swiss defined their national identity in the nineteenth century, in the face of a changing domestic and international background. Zimmer explores why the nation became the focus of public concern at particular historical junctures, how different social actors created and re-created Swiss nationhood, and why the Swiss embraced some definitions rather than others. Beginning in the 1760s, which witnessed the genesis of an early national movement, the book ends in the 1890s when Switzerland developed into a modern nation.