History once served to sing the praises and legitimize the State’s sovereignty

Evidence

The common feature—and I think it is important—is that invasion, with its forms, motifs, and effects, became a historical problem to the extent that it involved an important politico-juridical issue. It 1s up to the invasion to define the nature, rights, and limits of monarchical power, it is up to the history of the invasion to define the role of royal councils, assemblies, and sovereign courts. It is up to the invasion to define the respective roles of the nobility, the rights of the nobility, royal councils, and the people, as opposed to the king. In short, the invasion is being asked to define the very principles of public right. At the very time when Grotius, Pufendorf, and Hobbes were trying to ground the rules that constitute the just State in natural law, a wide-ranging contrapuntal historical investigation was getting under way into the origins and validity of the rights that were actually being exercised—and it was looking at a historical event or, if vou like, at a slice of history that was, m both juridical and political terms, the Most sensitive region in the entire history of France. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 140 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

The other break, the other disruptive principle—which is, I think, more important—is the introduction of a new subject of history, both in the sense that the historical narrative acquires a new domain of objects, and in the sense that a new subject begins to speak in history. History is no longer the State talking about itself; it is something else talking about itself, and the something else that speaks in history and takes itself as the object of its own historical narrative is a sort of new entity known as the nation. “Nation” is, of course, to be understood in the broad sense of the term. I will try to come back to this point, as it is this notion of a nation that generates or gives rise to notions like nationality, race, and class. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 158 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Colonial states museumized sacred sites to legitimize themselves as guardians of tradition — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 673; States were once expected to produce passions, not merely check them; The nation emerges as a new subject of history distinct from the State — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 158 (+2 more)

Related

• Histories of conquest functioned as groundings of public right alongside natural law (similarity 0.85)
• The nation emerges as a new subject of history distinct from the State (similarity 0.81)
• History writing once served royal legitimacy until the invasion narrative broke it (similarity 0.81)
• Historical discourse once functioned to legitimate the State’s sovereignty (similarity 0.79)
• Natural right functions as history’s perpetual defeated ‘other’ (similarity 0.79)
• Sieyes introduces a rectilinear, State-oriented history replacing the cyclical revolution-return model (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Histories of conquest functioned as groundings of public right alongside natural law #exemplifies (0.85) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 140
• The nation emerges as a new subject of history distinct from the State #expands (0.80) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 158
• States were once expected to produce passions, not merely check them #expands (0.75)