Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
Item
Title
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
Abstract/Description
The definitive, bestselling book on the origins of nationalism, and the processes that have shaped it.Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson’s brilliant book on nationalism, forged a new field of study when it first appeared in 1983. Since then it has sold over a quarter of a million copies and is widely considered the most important book on the subject. In this greatly anticipated revised edition, Anderson updates and elaborates on the core question: what makes people live and die for nations, as well as hate and kill in their name? Anderson examines the creation and global spread of the ‘imagined communities’ of nationality, and explores the processes that created these communities: the territorialization of religious faiths, the decline of antique kinship, the interaction between capitalism and print, the development of secular languages-of-state, and changing conceptions of time and space. He shows how an originary nationalism born in the Americas was adopted by popular movements in Europe, by imperialist powers, and by the movements of anti-imperialist resistance in Asia and Africa.In a new afterword, Anderson examines the extraordinary influence of Imagined Communities, and the book's international publication and reception, from the end of the Cold War era to the present day.
Author/creator
Date
Publisher
Verso
Resource type
Background/Context
Medium
Print
Background/context type
Conceptual
Open access/free-text available
No
Peer reviewed
No
ISBN
978-1-84467-086-4
Citation
Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Verso.
Resource status/form
Published Text
Scholarship genre
Textbook
Num pages
266
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