Why do millions of strangers feel a deep, horizontal comradeship for one another?

Ideas & Philosophy · Published 30 September 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Benedict Anderson argued that nations are not ancient, biological facts but modern, imagined constructs. By analyzing how capitalism and print media converged in the 18th century, he explained how people who never meet can feel a profound, shared identity—a theory that redefined our understanding of the modern state.

In his seminal 1983 work, Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson proposed that a nation is an 'imagined community' because its members will never know most of their fellow citizens, yet they maintain a sense of communion. This bond is not a fabrication but a powerful social reality, characterized by 'horizontal comradeship' that has historically inspired countless individuals to sacrifice their lives for the collective.

Anderson challenged conventional historiography by shifting the focus away from Europe, arguing that nationalism first emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries within the Americas. He posited that the rise of mass vernacular newspapers was the critical mechanism; as people read the same news simultaneously, they began to imagine themselves as part of a sovereign, limited entity. This shared experience allowed diverse populations to transcend social hierarchies and geographical distance, forming a cohesive national identity.

The theory faced significant critique, particularly from postcolonial scholars like Partha Chatterjee. Critics argued that Anderson’s framework, by focusing on 'creole pioneers' like Benjamin Franklin and Simón Bolívar, risked conflating the experiences of the elite with those of the broader population. Despite these debates, Anderson’s work remains a cornerstone of political science for its attempt to account for the deep, often underappreciated emotional attachment people feel toward their nations, a factor he believed both liberalism and Marxism had failed to adequately explain.

Born in China in 1936 to an Irish father and English mother, Anderson spent his career at Cornell University, where his critical stance on Indonesian politics led to a decades-long ban from the country. His intellectual legacy, spanning from his 1967 doctoral research to his later studies on anarchism and anti-colonialism, continues to influence how we analyze the complex interplay between language, power, and the modern state.

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