> his view that the 'national' characteristics of the common folk are inherent or 'racial'

This was the Romantic view going all the way back to Herder in the 18th Century, and widely taken for granted in the 19th. "Common sense" back then.

"Culture" was taken to be the natural expression of inherited characteristics.

I assume these views were easier to hold in the days when populations were not nearly so mobile as they've been in the past century or so.

Pseud, "jackanory"?