The Sociology Book

202

A L L C O M M U N I T I E S

A R E I M A G I N E D

BENEDICT ANDERSON (1936– )

B

efore the 16th century, the

idea of nationalism did not

exist. It is a modern concept

that we have imagined into being

and then convinced ourselves

that it has an immemorial past.

These are the views of social

and political theorist Benedict

Anderson, who says that we take

the idea of nationalism as a given:

if you are born in a certain place,

you have a certain nationality, just

as you are born a particular gender.

Anderson’s book Imagined

Communities (1983) questions

the entire basis of nationalism.

He defines “the nation” as “an

imagined political community

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Nationalism

KEY DATES

1800 German philosopher

Johann Fichte argues for a

centralized state that could

isolate itself from the world

to develop a volksgeist—a

nation’s distinct sense of self.

1861 Soon after Italian

unification, politician Massimo

d’Azeglio announces: “We have

made Italy. Now we have to

make Italians.”

1965 British-Czech

anthropologist Ernest Gellner

suggests that “nationalism is

not the awakening of nations

to self-consciousness: it

invents nations where they

do not exist.”

1991 French philosopher

Étienne Balibar says that

“every ‘people’... is the project

of a national process of

ethnicization.”

With the development of printing,

publishers appealed to the masses with books written in the most

widespread vernacular languages as well as in Latin.

This unification via a common language allowed

the growth of shared ideas and values, and the idea of

belonging to a nation grew.

This gave the languages more stability, and helped

to define groups of people according to

the language they spoke.

In a time when belief in religious rule was in decline,

the concept of “nationhood” gave the populace

something to believe in, and a cause to die for.