Extraordinary book on nationalism, and how we create these images of who we are.

(I took a graduate course in Cultural Anthropology on ethnicity and nationalism, where we read a tremendous amount of the current academic thinking on related topics, and I found nearly all of it appallingly bad: in a world all their own, little touch with reality, and also a ridiculous fog index in the writing. There were a few gems in there, though, and this was the standout, by far. And more than a decade later, it has held up. This book has stuck with me.) ( )

Coming from the perspective of someone who'd read post-Anderson stuff before this book, I still understood why it was groundbreaking, I think, but it didn't absolutely knock my socks off.

Anderson is a great treatment of nationalism and I agreed with a lot of what he had to say; sometimes he was a little vague in ways that helped his arguments, but overall it's very much worth reading. Of course, if you're at all interested in nationalism, you've probably either already read this book or are going to read it regardless of what this review says. ( )

This book was something of a difficult read. Anderson does his best, though-- he's actually quite good at clearly separating and enumerating multiple points. There's some great ideas in here, too, about what constitutes a nation, where nations came from, what cultural artifacts constitute a nation, and so on; he attributes nations to the rise of what he calls "print capitalism" as well as the collapse of a universal Catholic Church, among other things. I suppose what makes it inaccessible at times is the supporting data, which often derives from the South Pacific and other areas where I lack historical context and knowledge. Anderson has great ideas, but I feel like they get lost within the book-- discussing it with others and drawing these ideas out is highly recommended. Or, you can just read the chapter of Jonathan Culler's The Literary in Theory where he essentially summarizes the whole book for you. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the book was the food for thought it provides about what comes after the nation-- Anderson doesn't really discuss this at all, but you can't help thinking about it and wondering...

This little book is one of the most important works of historical sociology written in the late twentieth century. Anderson defines the nation as an imagined community built by capitalism on the basis of territory in the modern world. He shows how language, culture, capitalism, and the use of printing intersect and interact to create these imagined communities in the modern world. A triumph of theory-building. ( )

A fascinating read. Anderson's thesis that nations are essentially imagined took the discussion of nationality in a new direction. A very important book which should be read by anyone interested in the subject of national identity. ( )

A thorough attempt to understand the rise of nationalism. He attributes the primary causes to be the decline of religion and the rise of capitalism. Decline of religion caused a different conception of time, moving from a sense of divine plan to an unplanned, almost random sense of time. And nationalism provided a place to put loyalties and sense of identity that was lost to religion. Not a particularly convincing thesis and he doesn't develop it much. He is more convincing on factors that allowed nationalism to flourish, including printing capitalism, colonialism (which created and cemented certain nations), and a decline of dynastic legitimacy. Of course, his big idea of nations being constructed is the most important concept and the big worth of the book. Anyone reading about nationalism needs to read this book, if only because all other books on the subject reference it. ( )

An intriguing look at how the sense of "nationality" came to be - it's more recent than you might think, since the advent of the printed page. Anderson uses examples from Southeast Asia, his area of speciality, to illustrate his points. ( )

Wonderful book, one of my favorites. Provides a framework for studying and understanding how cultures change over time, and how people and institutions (including business enterprises and government) react to those changes.

The book also shows how critical print and publishing industries were to the massive societal changes that have occurred over the past few centuries. And it shows how traditional institutions (such as European aristocracies, and later governments) reacted to change and attempted to solidify their institutional control. Especially interesting to me were Anderson’s discussions of the use of state-controlled education and propaganda in the colonies populated by European expansion, to influence native residents or, in some cases, to create a line of segregation between European colonizers and a region’s original inhabitants.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone studying history, societies, or cultural change. It is not always an easy read, but once you grasp what Anderson is trying to say, you’ll see elements of his work (or at least, his essential themes) in anything else on society or culture that you read. ( )

A remarkable book examining the origins and rise of nationalism over the past three centuries. The author, a professor of international studies at Cornell University and a world-renowned scholar on Indonesia and Thailand, uses examples from southeast Asia to prove his theses. A wonderful and thought-provoking read. ( )