HistoryBook · 1983
Imagined Communities
Benedict Anderson
Anderson defines a nation as an imagined political community, imagined as limited and as sovereign, whose members will never meet most of their fellow citizens. His account of how it became thinkable turns on print capitalism: standardised vernaculars, and the daily newspaper read by thousands of people at once as a kind of ritual. First published in 1983.
Why you should read this
Anderson's account of nationalism as a cultural construct built through print capitalism rather than an ancient bond, still the standard reference for explaining why national identity feels immemorial even though it is historically recent. Academic in register, aimed at readers already interested in political theory.
- Field
- History
- Form
- Non-fiction
- Published
- 1983
- Themes
- NationalismHistory
