Questions About Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism

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What sway does this book hold anymore? Hasn't 32 years of advancement made it obsolete?

Boy Blue How much sway does Plato's Republic still have? How much sway does Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations or Karl Marx's Das Kapital have? The answer is a lot…moreHow much sway does Plato's Republic still have? How much sway does Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations or Karl Marx's Das Kapital have? The answer is a lot. Imagined Communities is a seminal work that changed the field, it will always be relevant. It has also been updated twice, most recently in 2006. You will learn so much from this book and you have to remember that this isn't strictly a science work.

Even if this was just a scientific work, think of Isaac Newton's Principia, physics since then has been expanded on, updated, and changed. Yet, nearly 300 years on Newton still has a lot of sway because he is the Giant on whose shoulders everyone is standing (note: he said that about all the people before him). Imagined Communities will always have sway, even in 300 years time, although by then it may just be remembered as a historical marker in the emergence of a new field of study.(less)

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