Our True Nationality Is Mankind Benedict Anderson

H. G. Wells, a well-known writer of science fiction, once said, “Our true nationality is mankind.” According to the historian, and scholar Benedict Anderson, the lines on maps, the flags, even the patriotism of citizens are imagined concepts. “Nation, nationality, nationalism- all have proved notoriously difficult to define, let alone to analyze”(Anderson 3). However, Anderson does define nationalism, as a concept that draws on all kinds of sources, from myth, religion, language, and the printed word to create the idea of the nation-state. As a historian, Anderson theorizes that the origins of the “imagined community” only arose historically when, and where, three fundamental cultural conceptions, lost their grip on men 's minds. The first was access of information through printed information, the second was belief of a ruling hierarchy, and the third, and last, was the separation of nation and belief systems (36).

Using examples throughout history, Anderson endeavors to explain and define the establishment of the nation, the concept of nationalism, and the citizen’s concept of nationality.

“My point of departure is that nationality, or, as one might prefer to put it in view of that word 's multiple significations, nation-ness, as well as nationalism, are cultural artifacts of a particular kind. To understand them properly we need to consider carefully how they have come into historical being, in what ways their meanings have changed over time, and why, today, they command such profound emotional legitimacy”(Anderson 4).

It is Anderson’s ability to walk through the establishment of the “nation” and “nationalism” that allows the audience to come to the understanding that communities are simply the products of certain events, and that in all, the ways we identify ourselves are nothing but