Cover to cover: ‘Imagined Communities’
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What makes people live and die for nations? Social scientist Dr Fenella Fleischmann explains the power of the imagined community.
“[T]he members of the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.”
With this seemingly simple observation Benedict Anderson opens his now-famous inquiry into the roots of nationalism. In Imagined Communities he tries to understand why people with such different lives, interests and needs, nevertheless share a sense of identity and belonging. Social scientist Dr Fenella Fleischmann (UU) will discuss what Anderson’s book tells us about nationalism today. What makes people live and die for nations, as well as hate and kill in their name? Can the imagined community be multicultural one?