Imagined Communities Reflections on the Origin & Spread of Nationalism

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.

A brilliant exegesis on nationalism.Sparkling, readable, densely packed. -- Peter Worsley

A brilliant little book. -- Neal Ascherson

"Anderson's knowledge of a vast range of relevant historical literature is most impressive; his presentation of the gist of it is both masterly and lucid." Neal Ascherson Observer

"A brilliant exegesis on nationalism." Nation

"Sparkling, readable, densely packed." Peter Worsley

"A brilliant little book." Guardian

The world-famous work on the origins and development of nationalism
The full magnitude of Benedict Anderson s intellectual achievement is still being appreciated and debated. Imagined Communities remains the most influential book on the origins of nationalism, filling the vacuum that previously existed in the traditions of Western thought. Cited more often than any other single English-language work in the human sciences, it is read around the world in more than thirty translations.
Written with exemplary clarity, this illuminating study traces the emergence of community as an idea to South America, rather than to nineteenth-century Europe. Later, this sense of belonging was formed and reformulated at every level, from high politics to popular culture, through print, literature, maps and museums. Following the rise and conflict of nations and the decline of empires, Anderson draws on examples from South East Asia, Latin America and Europe s recent past to show how nationalism shaped the modern world."

The definitive book on nationalism'"over a quarter of a million copies sold worldwide.

The definitive, bestselling book on the origins of nationalism, and the processes that have shaped it.

Benedict Anderson is Aaron L. Binenkorp Professor of International Studies Emeritus at Cornell University. He is editor of the journal Indonesia and author of Java in a Time of Revolution, The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia, and the World and Imagined Communities.

This is a book to be owned and read, re-read, and treasured.