Imagined Communities

The title of Benedict Anderson’s influential 1983 book on nationalism, which theorizes that nations are “imagined communities”—socially constructed entities perceived by their members as sharing a deep, horizontal comradeship despite never meeting most fellow members. The concept has become a widely applied framework in social theory and political analysis.

Claims that use this term

• Chinese censors excised an entire chapter from Imagined Communities
• Imagined Communities analysis can be deployed to study financialized capitalism through speculation.