Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson 1983 Ch 1 Introduction Nation Nationality and Nationalism are innovative recent concepts artifacts created in late 18th century due to historical circumstance but easily transplanted to the rest of the world lack definitions and defy analysis arouse deep attachments Three paradoxes of Nationalism 1 Objective modernity of nations vs their subjective antiquity 2 Formal universality of nationality as a socio cultural concept vs irremediable particularity of concrete manifestations of nationality 3 Political power of nationalisms vs their philosophical poverty and incoherence Definition of nation An imagined political community that is both limited and sovereign Imagined because members cannot all know each other Limited because no nation encompasses all of mankind nor even aspires to Sovereign because nations came into being during Enlightenment and strive for freedom Community because a nation is conceived of as a horizontal comradeship of equals Why Why is it that these limited imaginings of fraternity which have existed for only two centuries have inspired millions of people to be willing kill and die for them The answers lie in the cultural roots of nationalism Ch2 Cultural Roots What was happening in Europe in 18 th c Religious modes of thought were declining Enlightenment and rationalist secularism were prevailing The idea of a nation gave a new sense of continuity to the cycle of life and death Nations imagine themselves as an expression of a glorious past headed toward a limitless future Cultural Systems Prior to the advent of nationality the primary cultural systems were Dynastic realms Religious communities or Religious community linked by a sacred language text which was superior to vernaculars potentially encompass all humanity via conversion suggested a unique hierarchy unique access to truth ultimately eroded by world exploration discovery of other great religions and vernacularization Dynastic realm Kingdoms focused on centers not borders Ruled over heterogeneous populations Sexual politics of dynastic marriage Population is subjects not citizens part of a divine hierarchy Principle of automatic legitimacy withered away and dynasties gradually took on nationalist features Apprehensions of time Religious world view based on concept of time where there is a simultaneity of past and future in an instantaneous present Innovation of novel and newspaper create a new concept of homogeneous empty time and a new concept of simultaneity A nation can move calendrically through this new time CH3 The Origins of National Consciousness Development of print as a commodity makes it possible for a community that is horizontal secular transverse time to exist Capitalism helped to make the concept of nation popular Print capitalism Printing begins in 15th c aimed at Latin readers but this market was saturated after 150 years and focus shifted to vernaculars Even earlier use of administrative vernaculars began spreading in Europe Print gave language a new fixity helped create standards and build an image of antiquity Ch5 Old Languages New Models Between 1820 1920 national printlanguages were of central ideological and political importance in Europe The concept of nation once invented became widely available for pirating and was imported to a diverse array of situations and ideologies Europe s sense of self and other 16th c Europe discovered other civilizations and that it was only one among many civilizations and not necessarily the Chosen or the best 18th c Comparative linguistics and investigation of proto languages changes concepts of history 19th c linguistic development of vernaculars Languages belonged no longer to God but to their speakers and dictionaries and grammars treat all languages as equals Bourgeoisie and Literacy expand 19th c Europe major expansion of state bureaucracies and middle classes Cohesion of bourgeoisie facilitated by literacy Vernacular languages of state assumed greater power first displacing Latin and then minority languages Equality of compatriots The new middle class intelligentsia of nationalism had to invite the masses into history Nairn If Hungarians deserved a national state then that meant Hungarians all of them it meant a state in which the ultimate locus of sovereignty had to be the collectivity of Hungarian speakers and readers and in due course the liquidation of serfdom the promotion of popular education the expansion of suffrage and so on Anderson Ch8 Patriotism Racism Many today find nationalism to be pathological with affinities to racism hatred of the Other but Nations inspire self sacrificing love shown in poetry prose music arts The political love of nationalism This love is expressed in terms of kinship or home ties that are natural and unchosen like skin color and parentage Because these ties are unchosen they have about them a halo of disinterestedness and can require sacrifice Love death The fated link to a nation because it is disinterested has a purity that sanctions the idea of an ultimate sacrifice The 20th c is unprecedented in the number of people who lay down their lives for their nations Death serves also to symbolize eternal continuity for a nation Just for comparison Dying for something like The Democratic Party The American Medical Association Amnesty International These would not have the same cachet because they are bodies we can join or leave More on death War monuments holidays commemorating battles holocausts genocides and even fraternal civil wars serve to bond a nation to a history Tombs for the Unknown Soldier are particularly powerful for they also reinforce the image of equality Language A language is a powerful means to root a nation to a past because a language looms up from the past without any birthdate of its own and suggests a community between a contemporary society and its dead ancestors Poetry and songs as national anthems create a simultaneous community of selfless voices Imagined objects of affection the objects of these attachments are imagined anonymous faceless fellowTagalogs exterminated tribes Mother Russia But amor patriae does not differ in this respect from the other affections in which there is always an element of fond imagining What the eye is to the lover language is to the patriot Through that language encountered at mother s knee and parted with only at the grave pasts are restored fellowships are imagined and futures are dreamed Ch10 Census Map