Book•
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
01 Jan 1983-
TL;DR: In this paper, Anderson examines the creation and global spread of the 'imagined communities' of nationality and 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.
Abstract: What 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.
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: The number of domains in which cultural consonance has been examined has been expanded to include—along with lifestyle and social support—family life, national identity, and food, and it is found that cultural dissonance in these five domains can be conceptualized as two latent variables of generalized cultural consonances, and that this generalized cultural vowel is associated with lower psychological distress.
Abstract: Cultural consonance is the degree to which individuals, in their own beliefs and behaviors, approximate widely shared cultural models. In previous research in Brazil and the United States we found that higher cultural consonance in the cultural domains of lifestyle and social support was associated with lower psychological distress. The aim of this paper is to expand on these results in two ways. First, the measurement of cultural consonance has been improved through a closer link of cultural domain analyses and survey research. Second, the number of domains in which cultural consonance has been examined has been expanded to include—along with lifestyle and social support—family life, national identity, and food. We found that cultural consonance in these five domains can be conceptualized as two latent variables of generalized cultural consonance, and that this generalized cultural consonance is associated with lower psychological distress. These results continue to support the usefulness of cultural consonance as a theoretical construct in the explanation of human social suffering.
110 citations
TL;DR: Forging the nation's collective memory is an integral part of the process of nation building as discussed by the authors and the powerful link between history and memory is especially salient in the educational system, which is responsible for implanting knowledge and values in the younger generation.
Abstract: Forging the nation’s collective memory is an integral part of the process of nation building. The powerful link between history and memory is especially salient in the educational system, which is responsible for implanting knowledge and values in the younger generation. The successful completion of this task, it is assumed, will turn young people into loyal citizens and will help instill a shared identity. Interestingly enough, historians and sociologists generally fail to note the political and social links between school textbooks and collective memory. Scholars dealing with the tools used by the state to create its own collective memory—such as historiography, literature, cinema or national commemorations—tend to overlook the role played by textbooks. At the same time, scholars in the field of textbook research barely analyze them in the context of the attempts to build a collective memory, usually ignoring the social environment that helps shape textbook content as well. Since in many Western democracies, and certainly in nondemocratic societies, the state controls the educational apparatus, it can shape the nation’s collective memory by determining what is to be included and
110 citations
TL;DR: A genealogy of globalization can be found in this paper, which follows the genealogy from its unlikely beginnings in the 1930s-1950s to the heated scholarly debates across the end of the twentieth century to the present.
Abstract: ‘Globalization’ is an extraordinary concept. It is a complicated concept that burst upon the world relatively recently, but soon became a household concern. It is a concept that was rarely used until the 1990s, but processes of globalization had been happening for centuries. This article follows the genealogy of the concept from its unlikely beginnings in the 1930s–1950s to the heated scholarly debates across the end of the twentieth century to the present. Before it became a buzz word, the concept of ‘globalization’ began to be used in the most unlikely fields: in education to describe the global life of the mind; in international relations to describe the extension of the European Common Market; and in journalism to describe how the ‘American Negro and his problem are taking on a global significance’. The article begins to answer the question ‘Through what lineages and processes did the concept of globalization become so important?’ Drawing on textual research and interviews with key originating...
110 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore themes as diverse as: the Iron Age/Roman and Roman/Medieval transitions; Romanisation; material culture and identity; rural society; urbanism; zooarchaeology; and soldiers and civilians.
Abstract: This challenging book encourages those with an interest in Roman Britain to think broadly and to engage actively in shaping the future priorities of research into the subject. The volume reconsiders many assumptions about relations between Romans and the indigenous population and the authors explore themes as diverse as: the Iron Age/Roman and Roman/Medieval transitions; Romanisation; material culture and identity; rural society; urbanism; zooarchaeology; and soldiers and civilians. Within these themes the contributors seek to break down the relative insularity of Romano-British studies, and to open it up to new external perspectives and interdisciplinary approaches.
110 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the debate over the teaching of Canadian history that has been in progress in Canada since the early 1990s and considers four criticisms: schools do not teach enough Canadian history and students, therefore, do not know it; history that is taught is no longer sufficiently national; social history has destroyed the old nation-building narrative and dwells on the negative rather than the positive aspects of Canada's past; and child-centred teaching and other pedagogical fashions have led teachers to devalue factual knowledge.
Abstract: This paper examines the debate over the teaching of Canadian history that has been in progress in Canada since the early 1990s. It considers four criticisms: schools do not teach enough Canadian history and students, therefore, do not know it; the history that is taught is no longer sufficiently national; social history has destroyed the old nation-building narrative and dwells on the negative rather than the positive aspects of Canada's past; and child-centred teaching and other pedagogical fashions have led teachers to devalue factual knowledge. Finally, it examines the proposals that have been advanced for the reform of history teaching in Canada.
110 citations