Research Paper on:
Comparative Analysis of Nationalism

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
over the globe and persists to the present, across ideological boundaries. The following examination of Andersons text contrasts and compares it with other scholarly opinion on nationalism and its origins,  which demonstrates the complexity of this subject. Anderson (1983) discusses the major sequential causes for the rise of nationalism. First of all, he cites the development of "print-capitalism" as  being instrumental in spreading the idea of a country, which is what provincial elites managed to do in both North and South America. In the colonial nations of the New  World, early models of nationalism arose from the hostility of the colonial ruling class toward European nations of origin. According to Anderson (1983), these early models were altered by a  new popular nationalist movement that employed language and status to construct communities. To understand Andersons point, consider the way that the American founding fathers, largely through the medium of print,  established a feeling of nationalism among thirteen divergent colonies. The print technology made possible by capitalism made it possible to "imagine" large  linked communities where none before had previously existed (Anderson, 1983). A nation is "imagined" because, according to Anderson (1983), "the members of even the smallest nation will never know most  of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion" (p. 6). The last cause that Anderson  cites is the bureaucratic "weld" of nations into empires, such as was the case of Great Britain in the nineteenth century. Ultimately, Anderson addresses large issues in regards to nationalism,  asking why it has inspired so many people to make the ultimate sacrifice and lay down their lives in wars and revolutions. However, in analyzing this question, he offers no