Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of NationalismWhat makes people love and die for nations, as well as hate and kill in their name? While many studies have been written on nationalist political movements, the sense of nationality—the personal and cultural feeling of belonging to the nation—has not received proportionate attention. In this widely acclaimed work, Benedict Anderson examines the creation and global spread of the 'imagined communities' of nationality. Anderson explores the processes that created these communities: the territorialisation of religious faiths, the decline of antique kingship, the interaction between capitalism and print, the development of vernacular languages-of-state, and changing conceptions of time. He shows how an originary nationalism born in the Americas was modularly adopted by popular movements in Europe, by the imperialist powers, and by the anti-imperialist resistances in Asia and Africa. This revised edition includes two new chapters, one of which discusses the complex role of the colonialist state's mindset in the development of Third World nationalism, while the other analyses the processes by which all over the world, nations came to imagine themselves as old. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - gregdehler - LibraryThingNationalism and the nation-state are fairly recent phenomena, dating to the 1500s. How did they come together and how has the idea of nationalism been perpetuated in the modern era? Anderson sees the ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - bdtrump - LibraryThingAn essential read in comparative and global politics, yet deeply flawed due to significant disregard for the importance of ethnicity and culture without strong evidence to do so. Read full review
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Cultural Roots | 9 |
The Origins of National Consciousness | 37 |
Creole Pioneers | 47 |
Old Languages New Models | 67 |
Official Nationalism and Imperialism | 83 |
The Last Wave | 113 |
Patriotism and Racism | 141 |
The Angel of History | 155 |
Census Map Museum | 163 |
Memory and Forgetting | 187 |
207 | |
213 | |
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Common terms and phrases
administrative American ancient antiquity aristocratic army became bilingual Bolivar Borobudur bourgeoisie Break-up of Britain British capitalism census central chapter Chinese Christian civil colonial conception consciousness created creole cultural Dutch early educational eighteenth century Emphasis added Empire English Europe European Febvre and Martin feudal France French functionaries German Habsburg Hungarian Hungary Ibid idea Ignotus imagined community imperial independence Indian Indies indigenous Indochina Indonesian intelligentsias Islam Japanese Jaszi Khmer Khmer Krom language language-of-state late Latin linguistic Magyar Malay Marxist metropole military modern nationalist nationalist movements native newspaper nineteenth century nonetheless novel numbers official nationalism original Phnom Penh pilgrimages political popular population possible print-capitalism print-language quoc ngu racism regime religious Republic revolutionary Russification sacred Saint-Barthelemy schools Semarang Seton-Watson Siam social socialist society Southeast Asia Spanish Spanish-American Revolutions Tagalog territories Thai Thirteen Colonies Tom Nairn traditional unselfconscious vernacular Vietnam Vietnamese Western words young