Invention of Tradition, The

The Invention of Tradition, edited by Eric J. Hobsbawm and Terence O. Ranger, is a collection of six essays. Since its publication, the book has been considered a pathbreaking work. The editors brought together distinguished scholars in the field of history and anthropology and asked them to explore and reflect on the processes through which traditions are invented and disseminated in modern societies. Several resilient traditions that permeate modern national cultures are often considered old and long-standing practices. In fact, they are not. As the book aims to show, these traditions have a relatively recent historic origin and are the product of a fictitious elaboration of the past, which often serves specific ideological purposes. The formation and consolidation of invented traditions are particularly evident in ...