If we consider nations as imagined communities, what role did the concepts of race, gender, and class play in crafting national identity from the mid-nineteenth century through the beginnings of the twentieth century? How did these same concepts also serve to undermine a sense of national identity and unity?
             Race, class, and gender give certainty to the idea of nations as imagined communities. Nations are imaginings of a general populace, yet they have a profound effect on how the people who have imagined them live out their lives. People in a nation are incredibly different, yet they are believed to be the same because they belong to this imaginary community. In this sense, a nation can be seen as a creation that requires consciousness because this notion of the community must be larger than any individual could experience directly. This understanding of nations gives significance to factors such as race, class, and gender. These factors serve to contribute to the idea of shared qualities between people within the imagined borders of a nation. Furthermore, as race, class, and gender create shared national identities within the imagined boundary of a nation, they also narrow views of who is a 'true' member of that nation. The concept of a 'true' member of a nation is closely related to the growing notion of superiority within a nation and social hierarchies' development. These modes of "othering" are examples of how people in a culture tend to draw boundaries between themselves and others. Of most importance to the development of national identities is the use of enlightenment 'sciences' to prove national history and roots. These 'sciences,' which originally gave clarity to gender and race, created national identities, which were thought to be relatively homogeneous communities with shared characteristics which transcended internal divisions of class, and status. However, by the late nineteenth century, theories previously used to ...