Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism

by Benedict Anderson

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Work details

Book details

Title	Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
Author	Benedict Anderson
Rating
Tags	nonfic, politics
Collections	Your library
Your review	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...
Other authors 1
Publication	Verso (2006), Edition: Revised, Paperback, 256 pages
Publication date	2006
ISBN	1844670864 / 9781844670864
LC classification 1	JC311 .A656
Dewey	320.54
Subjects	Cultural identity History Imperialism Language Nationalism Nationalism › History
Primary language	(blank)
Secondary language	(blank)
Original language
Date acquired	2008-08-01
Date started
Date finished	2008-10-01
Summary 1	Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson (2006)
Comments
BCID	XXX-
Number of copies	1
Citation	MLA, APA, Chicago/Turabian, Wikipedia citation
Data source	amazon.com