An intellectual memoir by the author of the acclaimed Imagined Communities
Benedict Anderson is one of the leading historians of nationalism and Southeast Asia. His seminal book Imagined Commu-nities has changed the way we think about the reason why people live, die and kill in the name of nation-hood.
Born in China, Anderson spent his childhood in California and Ireland, was educated in England and finally found a home at Cornell University, where he immersed himself in the growing field of Southeast Asian studies. After field work in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, he was banned from Suharto’s Indonesia for disputing the legitimacy of the 1965 coup. In his memoir, he brings to life the intellectual formation of a life spent open to the world, resisting the easy comforts of imagined homes: the joys of learning languages; the importance of field work; the influence of the New Left upon global think-ing; and the satisfactions of teaching.

民族主義研究的必讀經典
《想像的共同體》自1983年問世以來，不但使學界對民族與民族主義課題的思考角度產生哥白尼式的徹底翻轉，其深刻影響也廣及人文與社會學科的各個領域。除了被譯成三十一種語言出版之外，甚至成為一種近乎教科書的作品，遠遠超乎作者的預料。
安德森從文化內涵的改變與印刷資本主義的興起來探討民族主義的源起，並辨析民族主義在美洲誕生，被歐洲的群眾運動挪用，被帝國政權吸納，再到亞非兩洲以民族主義為號召的反帝國主義抗爭的數百年過程。
此次中文增訂版收錄了安德森於2006年新添的一章，概略檢視了此書所造成的影響，並探討此書在世界各地的出版與反應情況；另外更收錄了2003年作者兩篇關於臺灣處境的研討會講稿，以及譯者訪談這位學術大師的深情記敘。