Regional Identity and Economic Change: The Upper Rhine 1450-1600

Europe lives in age of regionalism and regional identities which offer an alternative to the rigidities of organization by nation-state. Historically, such regions have been defined—if defined at all—in cultural, linguistic, ethnic, or political terms, with little emphasis on the economic factors of the period before industrialization. Tom Scott's intensive study of one region—the Upper Rhine between 1450 and 1600—redresses this imbalance. In this locality, divided between three countries and historically marginalized, Scott reveals the existence of a modern sense of regional identity working across national frontiers, and predicated on common economic interests.