Multiple comparable early nationalist movements in Spanish America predate Europe’s
Evidence
The multiplicity was as crucial as the world-historical early dates. The US and Haitian ‘revolutions’ preceded the nationalist movements in Spanish America, and national Brazil emerged much later, but each of these had the apparent advantage of idiosyncrasy. (A few days ago, my local newspaper in Bangkok sarcastically referred to the USA as the Land of the Free[ly Self-Centred]). But Spanish America was eminently comparable and, just as important, fought over many bloody years for multiple republican independences, while sharing language and religion with imperial Spain – long before Magyars, Czechs, Norwegians, Scots, and Italians got into the act. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 787
Categorization
- ADDENDUM: Relevant to ‘On Sacrifice’ in that early creole republicanism and independence movements parallel the comparative framing; but more apt as a general corrective against Eurocentric accounts of nationalism.
- XREF: connects to: Both modernism and postmodernism were coined in Hispanic America before Europe. — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 10