What are the imagined communities that compel men to kill or to die for an idea of a nation? This notion of nationhood had its origins in the founding of the Americas, but was then adopted and transformed by populist movements in nineteenth-century Europe. It became the rallying cry for anti-Imperialism as well as the abiding explanation for colonialism. In this scintillating, groundbreaking work of intellectual history Anderson explores how ideas are formed and reformulated at every level, from high politics to popular culture, and the way that they can make people do extraordinary things. In the twenty-first century, these debates on the nature of the nation state are even more urgent. As new nations rise, vying for influence, and old empires decline, we must understand who we are as a community in the face of history, and change.

"Nationalism" is a book compiled from a series of lectures by Rabindranath Tagore. The book is dedicated to the Nationalist Movement in India, World War I, and the industrial revolution of the late 19th century and the early 20th century. Tagore viewed nationalism as an alien component of the Indian culture that was instead implanted by the Western political thought that belonged to the Indian political tradition. He believed that nationalism leads to greed, maximization of profit, an inhuman application of science, and war. Therefore, he praised countries that didn't involve in WWI and pertained to their high culture.

In this sweeping history, bestselling author Amy Chua explains how globally dominant empires—or hyperpowers—rise and why they fall. In a series of brilliant chapter-length studies, she examines the most powerful cultures in history—from the ancient empires of Persia and China to the recent global empires of England and the United States—and reveals the reasons behind their success, as well as the roots of their ultimate demise. Chua's analysis uncovers a fascinating historical pattern: while policies of tolerance and assimilation toward conquered peoples are essential for an empire to succeed, the multicultural society that results introduces new tensions and instabilities, threatening to pull the empire apart from within. What this means for the United States' uncertain future is the subject of Chua's provocative and surprising conclusion.

An esteemed theologian examines how American identity and America's presence in the world are shaped by war.

Identity has become the watchword of our times. In sub-Saharan Africa, this certainly appears to be true and for particular reasons. Africa is urbanising rapidly, cross-border migration streams are swelling and globalising influences sweep across the continent. Africa is also facing up to the challenge of nurturing emergent democracies in which citizens often feel torn between older traditional and newer national loyalties. Accordingly, collective identities are deeply coloured by recent urban as well as international experience and are squarely located within identity politics where reconciliation is required between state nation-building strategies and sub-national affiliations. They are also fundamentally shaped by the growing inequality and the poverty found on this continent. These themes are explored by an international set of scholars in two South African and two Francophone cities. The relative importance to urban residents of race, class and ethnicity but also of work, space and language are compared in these cities. This volume also includes a chapter investigating the emergence of a continental African identity. A recent report of the Office of the South African President claims that a strong national identity is emerging among its citizens, and that race and ethnicity are waning whilst a class identity is in the ascendance. The evidence and analyses within this volume serve to gauge the extent to which such claims ring true, in what everyone knows is a much more complex and shifting terrain of shared meanings than can ever be captured by such generalisations.

How is history represented? As just a record of the past, as a part of a present identity or as future goals? This book explores how historical contents and narratives are presented in school textbooks and other cultural productions (museums, monuments, etc) and also how they are understood by students, in the context of increasing globalization. In these contemporary conditions, the relation between history learning processes, in and out of school, and the construction of national identities presents an ever more important topic. It is being studied by looking at the appropriation of historical narratives, which are frequently based on the official history of a nation state. Most of the chapters in this volume are educational studies about how the learning of history takes place in school settings of different countries such as Canada, France, Germany, Latin America, Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. Covering such a broad sample of cultural and national contexts, they provide a rich reflection on history as a subject related to patriotism, cosmopolitanism, both or neither.

As the world bears witness to the terror and warfare provoked by people's sense of who they are, how they are regarded, and what they deserve, we have entered into the 'age of identity.' Erik Erikson (1902-1994) was the prophet of this new age. His lifetime of clinical and interdisciplinary work on human development focused on the formation and maintenance of identity among people of diverse backgrounds: black, white, and Native American; rich, middle class, and poor; male and female. In this volume scholars from various disciplines, some who knew, worked with, and became good friends of Erikson, discuss and assess his legacy, and investigate the challenges that identity brings to the contemporary world. Contributions to this volume frame the challenge identity poses to contemporary scholarship through Erikson's own work, research in empirical and clinical psychology, individual and rational choice theories, Marxism, democratic theories of political participation, fundamentalism, and globalization . Through the book's truly trans-disciplinary scope, Erikson and his scholarship beg to be revisited by psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and students of interdisciplinary social sciences and humanities.