Includes bibliographical references and index.

Front Matter -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Acknowledgements -- Maps and Figures -- Introduction -- Tailoring the Repertoire of the French Nation -- Antiquarians and Archaeologists: The Retrieval of Monuments in Roussillon -- Vernacular Languages to be Preserved as National Heritage: Catalan -- The Long-Standing Traditionalist Approach to Language Studies -- A Transnational Cultural Context: Occitans and Catalans -- Catalan Language and Literature in Roussillon, 1880–1906 -- Conclusion -- Back Matter -- Bibliography -- Index.

In the nineteenth century, the search for the artistic, architectural and written monuments promoted by the French State with the aim to build a unified nation transcending regional specificities, also fostered the development of local or regional identitary consciousness. In Roussillon, this distinctive consciousness relied on a basically cultural concept of nation epitomised mainly by the Catalan language – Roussillon being composed of Catalan counties annexed to France in 1659. In The Antiquarians of the Nation , Francesca Zantedeschi explores how the works of Roussillon's archaeologists and philologists, who retrieved and enhanced the Catalan specificities of the region, contributed to the early stages of a ‘national’ (Catalan) cultural revival, and galvanised the implicit debate between (French) national history and incipient regional studies.