Imagined Communities

The second book in our series about revolution is about the genesis of nationalism, and how that created the imagined communities we call nations. Join us at April 15th at Bourgeois Pig to discuss.

Written in 1983 by political scientist and historian, Benedict Anderson, "Imagined Communities" explains how the printing press, the waning belief in the divine right of kings, and industrialization led to the rise of "national consciousness" in multiple places in the Western Hemisphere near the end of the 1700's. He illustrates how the nation is an imagined community, as we will never meet the overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens, but yet feel commonality with them.

He starts the book with three paradoxes of nationalism:

1. Nationalism is a recent and modern creation despite nations being thought of by most people as old and timeless
2. Nationalism is universal in that every individual belongs to a nation, yet each nation is supposedly completely distinct from every other nation
3. Nationalism is an idea so influential that people will die for their nations, yet at the same time an idea difficult to define