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Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism Review

While ostensibly a modernist, Anderson's "Imagined Communities" differs from his peers as he, like the primordialists before him, believes that language is central to creating a sense of community or nationalism, although language was not necessarily a decisive factor or the most essential. For Anderson, nationalism is an anomaly which is not accounted for by either Marxian or liberal theory. Instead, nationalism is bound up in mortality, religion, language and culture. While acknowledging the centrality of language, Anderson also proposes there are three sequential causes resulting in the rise of nationalism: "print-capitalism," the rise of new elites (particularly in the Americas), and the bureaucratic "weld" or grafting of nations onto empires (particularly as with Great Britain, Russia, and France). The nationalism that flourished in the Americas was marked by its hostility of their colonial elites towards the authority centers or metropoles in Europe. Nationalism in the decolonization era was marked by the same hostility towards the European metropoles, but emphasized the use of indigenous languages and class consciousness by nationalists to create communities where none had existed before, such as in Indonesia, or to shore up diverse multi-ethnic entities as in China or Vietnam. Anderson differs most markedly from other modernists, such as Ernest Gellner and Eric Hobsbawm, by countering that nationalism is not so much about ideology as it is an anthropological phenomenon, hence Anderson's use of the term "Imagined Communities." While nationalism to Anderson is the product of modernity, it is an inclusive rather than exclusive phenomenon, driven by ever-changing factors which varied from region to region, and from age to age, focusing on what diverse peoples have in common. Anderson's approach is that nationalism draws extensively upon the past as a means of creating new social structures.

As a result, Anderson's argument is closer to more recent scholarship by other modernists such as David A. Bell, Linda Colley, and Lisa Cody, who argue nationalism predated the 19th Century by a hundred years or more.
As opposed to Gellner and Hobsbawm, who advance the theory that nationalism is a more recent phenomenon dating to the 19th Century and driven by ideology, capitalism and industrialization, Anderson and the others advocate that the modern age is much older and that language and other cultural factors played a much larger role in the origins and evolution of nationalism. Countered against the arguments made the more recent ethnosymbolist scholarship by Patrick Geary and Anthony D. Smith, Anderson makes an interesting and compelling argument that is less rigid than earlier modernists like Gellner and Hobsbawm. If anyone has a chance of redeeming modernist interpretations regarding nationalism then Anderson certainly is among those with a chance of making the case.

Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism Overview

Anderson's essay shows how the European processes of inventing nationalism were transported to the Third World through colonialism and were adapted by subject races in Latin America and Asia.

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Customer Reviews

A foundational text for the study of world nationalisms - J. Edgar Mihelic - Chicago
I know Anderson has done more work in the area since the original publication of this work, but I have not read it yet. I hope that work refines his original thesis a bit which seems to simplistic on the chain of causation from material base to the effect of nationalism.

Perhaps he simplified to stretch his model over more examples, but I would be interested to see Anderson's take on post-Soviet Europe and Asia. A solid recommend, but not a breezy read by any means.

One thing that does annoy me is when authors have chunks of text and notes in untranslated foreign language. In this text the Asiatic languages receive a translation, but the western European languages are left to the reader to interpret. I can read most French but no German, leaving me at a deficit in some cases in the text.



A short-lived idea? - Guillermo Maynez - Mexico, Distrito Federal Mexico
The thesis: "Nations" are imagined communities. They don't exist per se, as we will never know the overwhelming majority of our fellow compatriots. Nations don't respect ethnicity, religion, or preferences. They are not entities formed out of voluntary association. They are not optional at birth. They are political concoctions, perceived as limited and sovereign. Independently of the existing inequalities, they are conceived as horizontal fraternities. This book traces the development of this very recent and peculiar concept, unknown during the greater part of human history. It sprung from the vanishing of two preceding principles of organization as such: religion and dynasty. It owes its existence to the capitalist press's expansion, and its necessity of a uniform and general language, as well as to the art of the novel and its expression of the simultaneity of time for different local communities. Capitalism and its expansive force were central to the creation of Nationalism which, as an idea, was born in America, created by Europeans born already there, but without a history and in need of creating identities that would permit them keep power from the indigenous masses and the slaves or former slaves. In Europe, by contrast, Nationalism was basically linguistic, but never before had language been strictly identified with territory or race. Truly national languages were created by the press, and the threat of dissolution of empires created Official Nationalism as a defense mechanism of dynastic powers. In the European colonies, the census, maps, and museums created by the metropolises awakened (invented) in the various subjugated countries a national "conscience", which created nations there where the concept had no meaning, with the disastrous results we are witnesses to every day, mostly in Africa and the Middle East. There was no such thing as "Israel" and "Palestine". "Irak", "Kuwait", "Saudi Arabia" and many other "nations" are in reality nothing but partitions of former colonial territories. Especially in Africa, tribes were divided and ancestral enemies piled together without their consent into artificial nations.

This is an excellent book, well written and documented, with abundant examples and original and convincing theses. In the end, "nations" are nothing but inventions by politicians eager to keep their power, and it is likely that the model will change as communications, travel, immigration, supranational entities, and other developments affect the way communities organize around the globe. It will be (it is being) an exciting and interesting phenomenon to watch.






Very good - Sharon K. Cosgray - MD USA
I received this product earlier than I expected to. The book was in very good condition. Overall this seller is very reliable.

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