Why am I passionate about this?
I love stories, and as a child I found that some of the best and most powerful stories I ever heard were those that people told about the past. When I grew up, I pursued a career as an academic archaeologist and historian, and I am now Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Vienna. But while I am of course interested in the past, in recent years I have been increasingly thinking about the politics of the past as well. Why do we choose to celebrate some stories about the past and not others? I have found these books all useful in helping me to think through this.
Naoíse's book list on why the past matters for the future
Why did Naoíse love this book?
I first read this book as a student, and found it both radical and exciting to think that national identities, traditions, and even the existence of nations themselves were all invented, and so were also flexible and open to reinvention in the future.
I also loved that the examples were taken from Southeast Asia, where I have family roots. For a while I kept a worn second-hand copy in my student room, thinking it was my special discovery. I was almost disappointed to find that it is a standard text and very widely read.
4 authors picked Imagined Communities as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
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…