What is a nation? The no-sooner-established-by-President-Trump-than-abolished-by-Presidient-Biden “President’s Advisory 1776 Commission” understandably by-passed this question in its initial report. The report deals with a particular nation—our own—and had enough to do without entering the deeper thicket. But what is a nation?
In his 1983 book, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, the political scientist and historian Benedict Anderson proposed what has become the most popular answer among social scientists. A “nation,” in Anderson’s view, is a kind of myth. People imagine a community, larger than any actual community, and imagine themselves part of it.
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