The Invention of Tradition Quotes

“As one would expect of tourists, they tried to find poverty colourful,”
― Eric J. Hobsbawm, The Invention of Tradition

“Indeed, it may be suggested that ‘traditions’ and pragmatic conventions or routines are inversely related.”
― Eric J. Hobsbawm, The Invention of Tradition

“Invented tradition’ is taken to mean a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.”
― Eric J. Hobsbawm, The Invention of Tradition

“For all invented traditions, so far as possible, use history as a legitimator of action and cement of group cohesion.”
― Eric J. Hobsbawm, The Invention of Tradition

“The difference between ‘tradition’ and ‘custom’ in our sense is indeed well illustrated here. ‘Custom’ is what judges do; ‘tradition’ (in this instance invented tradition) is the wig, robe and other formal paraphernalia and ritualized practices surrounding their substantial action.”
― Eric J. Hobsbawm, The Invention of Tradition

“It is the contrast between the constant change and innovation of the modern world and the attempt to structure at least some parts of social life within it as unchanging and invariant, that makes the ‘invention of tradition’ so interesting for historians of the past two centuries.”
― Eric J. Hobsbawm, The Invention of Tradition

“We may thus conclude that the kilt is a purely modern costume, first designed, and first worn, by an English Quaker industrialist, and that it was bestowed by him on the Highlanders in order not to preserve their traditional way of life but to ease its transformation: to bring them out of the heather and into the factory.”
― Eric J. Hobsbawm, The Invention of Tradition