Imagined Communities

by

Benedict Anderson

The concept of sovereignty refers to a state’s absolute and exclusive power to govern what happens within (and crosses over) its borders. Following a long tradition in political philosophy, Anderson deems sovereignty an important characteristic of a state.

Sovereignty Quotes in Imagined Communities

The Imagined Communities quotes below are all either spoken by Sovereignty or refer to Sovereignty. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Nation as Imagined Community Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

In an anthropological spirit, then, I propose the following definition of the nation: it is an imagined political community—and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.

Related Characters: Benedict Anderson (speaker)
Page Number: 5-6
Explanation and Analysis:
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Sovereignty Term Timeline in Imagined Communities

The timeline below shows where the term Sovereignty appears in Imagined Communities. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1: Introduction
The Nation as Imagined Community Theme Icon
...of the nation: it is an imagined political community—and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.” The community “is imagined because the members […] will never know most of their fellow-members,”... (full context)
The Nation as Imagined Community Theme Icon
Centralization, Technology, and Power Theme Icon
...everyone, and so all nations are limited and recognize their borders. Moreover, nations consider themselves sovereign because, historically, they arose when political power replaced the imagined power of God. And finally,... (full context)
Chapter 5: Old Languages, New Models
Piracy and the Uses of History Theme Icon
...century. An important facet of this piracy was the notion that “the ultimate locus of sovereignty” would be the people themselves—all of them—which helped account for “the ‘populist’ character of the... (full context)
Chapter 7: The Last Wave
Centralization, Technology, and Power Theme Icon
In Indochina—a territory that now comprises the sovereign states of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam—the ruling French remodeled the education system to distance Laos... (full context)
Chapter 10: Census, Map, Museum
The Nation as Imagined Community Theme Icon
Centralization, Technology, and Power Theme Icon
...borders were not considered as falling on “a continuous map-line” that separated one zone of sovereignty from another. Around the turn of the 20th century, a massive investment in geography education... (full context)
The Nation as Imagined Community Theme Icon
Centralization, Technology, and Power Theme Icon
...Europeans used maps to justify their rule, claiming to have legally taken over “the putative sovereignties of [defeated] native rulers.” They in turn began reconstructing historical maps of their empires, and... (full context)
Chapter 11: Memory and Forgetting
The Nation as Imagined Community Theme Icon
Language, Publishing, and Identity Theme Icon
Piracy and the Uses of History Theme Icon
...remember/forget” the Civil War as a conflict “between ‘brothers’ rather than between—as they briefly were—two sovereign nation-states.” And Brits learn to see a Frenchman who spoke no English—William the Conqueror—as their... (full context)