Benedict Richard O'Gorman Anderson (born August 26, 1936) is the 238th day of the year (239th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Biography

Anderson is professor emeritus of International Studies at Cornell University. He was born in Kunming, China, to an Anglo-Irish father and English mother. He was brought up mainly in California, and studied at the University of Cambridge. He is the brother of the Marxist intellectual Perry Anderson. He is best known for his book Imagined Communities, in which he systematically describes using an historical materialist or Marxist approach, the major factors contributing to the emergence of nationalism in the world during the past three centuries. Anderson defined a nation as "an imagined political community [that is] imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign".^[1] He is also widely regarded as an authority on twentieth-century Indonesian history and politics. A professor is a senior teacher and researcher, usually in a college or university. ... International relations (IR) is an academic and public policy field, a branch of political science, dealing with the foreign policy of states within the international system, including the roles of international organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and multinational corporations (MNCs). ... “Cornell” redirects here. ... Kunming (Chinese: ; Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Kun-ming) is the capital city of Yunnan province, China. ... The University of Cambridge (often Cambridge University), located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world and has a reputation as one of the worlds most prestigious universities. ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... Perry Anderson (born 1938) is a leading Marxist intellectual. ... The Imagined Community is a concept coined by Benedict Anderson which states that a nation is socially constructed and ultimately imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group. ... Historical materialism is the methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history which was first articulated by Karl Marx (1818-1883), although Marx himself never used the term (he referred it as philosophical materialism, a term he used to distinguish it from what he called popular materialism). Historical... Marxist or historical materialist historiography is an influential school of historiography. ... Eugène Delacroixs Liberty Leading the People, symbolising French nationalism during the July Revolution 1830. ...

Imagined Communities

He argues that the main causes of nationalism and the creation of an imagined community are the reduction of privileged access to particular script languages (e.g. Latin), the movement to abolish the ideas of divine rule and monarchy, as well as the emergence of the printing press under a system of capitalism (or, as Anderson calls it, 'print-capitalism'). The Imagined Community is the concept strongly supported by Benedict Anderson which states that a nation is socially constructed and ultimately imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group. ... For other uses, see Latin (disambiguation). ... The Divine Right of Kings is a European political and religious doctrine of political absolutism. ... For the comic series, see Monarchy (comics). ... The printing press is a mechanical device for printing many copies of a text on rectangular sheets of paper. ... Capitalism generally refers to an economic system in which the means of production are all or mostly privately[1][2] owned and operated for profit, and in which investments, distribution, income, production and pricing of goods and services are determined through the operation of a free market. ...

Anderson’s theory belongs among those that have come to be known as a ‘modernist’ view of nationalism. Anderson similarly places the roots of the notion of 'nation' at the end of the 18th century. While Ernest Gellner considers the spread of nationalism in connection with industrialism in Western Europe (and thus not explaining sufficiently nationalism in the eastern non-industrialised European regions), Elie Kedourie connects nationalism with ideas of the Enlightenment, with the French revolution and the birth of the centralised French state, Anderson contends that the European nation-state came into being as the response to nationalism in the European Diaspora beyond the ocean, in colonies, namely in both Americas. He considers nation state building as somehow ‘imitative’ action, in which new political entities somehow were ‘pirating’ the model of nation state according to its models (mostly USA but also South America). The large cluster of political entities that sprang up in the west between 1778 and 1838, all of which self-consciously defined themselves as nations, were historically the first such states to emerge and therefore inevitably provided the first real model of what such states should ‘look like’. If for the more elitist theorizing of Kedourie it was the Enlightenment and Kant who produced the ‘nation’, Anderson holds that nationalism, as an instrument of nation-state building was an American invention. I do not think I could have written the book on nationalism which I did write, were I not capable of crying, with the help of a little alcohol, over folk songs . ... The borders of Western Europe were largely defined by the Cold War. ... Elie Kedourie C.B.E., FBA (25 January 1926-29 June 1992) was a British historian of the Middle East. ... The Age of Enlightenment (French: ; German: ) was an eighteenth century movement in European and American philosophy, or the longer period including the Age of Reason. ... The French Revolution (1789–1815) was a period of political and social upheaval in the political history of France and Europe as a whole, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on... This article refers to a colony in politics and history. ... World map showing the Americas CIA political map of the Americas The Americas are the lands of the Western hemisphere or New World consisting of the continents of North America[1] and South America with their associated islands and regions. ... South America South America is a continent crossed by the equator, with most of its area in the Southern Hemisphere. ... Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (April 22, 1724 – February 12, 1804) was a Prussian philosopher, generally regarded as one of Europes most influential thinkers and the last major philosopher of the Enlightenment. ...

Nationalism and Print

Of particular importance to Anderson’s theory is his stress on the role of printed literature and its dissemination. The rise of nationalism is in Anderson's mind closely connected with the growth of printed books and with technical development of print on the whole.

According to Anderson, a new emerging nation imagines itself antique. In this he somewhat takes the point of Anthony D. Smith, who considers the nation-building mythology and national myths of the ‘origin‘ in rather functionalist terms - they are more invented narratives than real stories. Anderson supposes that ’antiquity’ were, at a certain historical juncture, the necessary consequence of ‘novelty’. Though after the 1820s, atavistic fantasizing characteristics of most nationalists appear an epiphenomenon: what is really important is the structural alignment of post 1820s nationalist ‘memory’ with the inner premises and conventions of modern biography and autobiography. Anthony D. Smith (born 1928) is a noted English theorist of nationalism. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Cover of the first English edition of 1793 of Benjamin Franklins autobiography. ...

Á==Multi-ethnic Empires== Anderson, more than other theoreticians, focuses his attention on the official nationalism in multiethnic empires. He introduces an important concept: “naturalization” of Europe's dynasties that represented retention of power over huge polyglot domains. Some of them, e.g. Romanov empire, successfully transformed into “national” empires. According to Anderson, in the course of the 19th century, the philological-lexicographic revolution and the rise of nationalist movements, themselves the products not only of capitalism, but of the hypertrophy of the dynastic states, created increasing cultural and therefore political difficulties for many “dynasts”. Until that time the legitimacy of these dynasties had nothing to do with nationalness. Yet these dynasties, for exclusively administrative purposes, tried to settle on certain print-vernaculars before the nationalist big-bang. Simultaneously with the rise of nationalism in Europe, there were tendencies among Central and Eastern Europe and Balkan monarchies to re-identify themselves, to re-legitimise themselves on nationalist grounds. This will for re-identification caused in fact, well-know crises of legitimacy of multiethnic empires. Dynasties and monarchies, re-identifying themselves as members of the particular ethno-linguistic group, lost their universalistic legitimacy and became only the most privileged members of the one large family. The House of Romanov (Рома́нов, pronounced ) was the second and last imperial dynasty of Russia, which ruled the country for five generations from 1613 to 1761. ... Regions of Europe Central Europe is the region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. ... ...

Anderson's historical materialist approach may be contrasted with Liah Greenfeld's methodological individualist or Weberian approach in "Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity". Liah Greenfeld holds the position of University Professor and Professor of Political Science and Sociology, as well as Director of the Institute for the Advancement of the Social Sciences, at Boston University. ... For the politician, see Max Weber (politician). ...

Indonesia

Anderson was banned from Indonesia during the Suharto era because of his treatment of materials relevant to the Overthrow of Sukarno^{[citation needed]} Suharto GCB (born June 8, 1921) is a former Indonesian military and political leader. ... The overthrow of Sukarno and the violence that followed it was a conflict in Indonesia from 1965 to 1966 between forces loyal to then-President Sukarno and the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) and forces loyal to a right-wing military faction led by General Abdul Haris Nasution and Maj. ...

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Works

• (1972) Java in a Time of Revolution: Occupation and Resistance, 1944-1946. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-0687-0. 
• [1983] (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed., London: Verso. ISBN 0-86091-329-5. 
• (1985) In the Mirror: Literature and Politics in Siam in the American Era. Bangkok: Editions Duang Kamol.
• (1990) Language and Power: Exploring Political Cultures in Indonesia. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-2354-6. 
• (1998) The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia, and the World. London: Verso. ISBN 1-85984-813-3. 
• (2005) Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-colonial Imagination. London: Verso. ISBN 1-84467-037-6. 

References

External links

• A short biography
• "The Nation as Imagined Community" An excerpt from Imagined Communities
• "Western Nationalism and Eastern Nationalism: Is there a difference that matters?", by Anderson in the New Left Review.
• "When the Virtual Becomes the Real": A Talk with Benedict Anderson, (Spring 1996).
• "Democratic Fatalism in South East Asia Today" by Anderson, (May 11, 2001).
• Review of Imagined Communities by Fadia Rafeedie.
• "The Current Crisis in Indonesia" Interview with Benedict Anderson by William Seaman.
• "Sam's Club" Anderson on Anti-Americanisms, a book review in BOOKFORUM, (December/January 2005).
• Archive of articles written by Anderson in the New Left Review, (requires subscription).
• Interview with Anderson: "I like nationalism's utopian elements" (University of Oslo)
• Review of Under Three Flags by Meredith L. Weiss.
• "Petruk Dadi Ratu" New Left Review Article on Indonesia G30S Coup D'Etat

In 1960 in the UK, the editors of the New Reasoner and the Universities and Left Review merged their boards and formed the New Left Review. ...

Trivia

• Quoted in "Waking Life"