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All this points to the importance of social memory; as the example of the relationship between modern and ancient Greeks shows, ethnies are constituted, not by lines of physical descent, but by the sense of continuity, shared memory and collective destiny, i.e. by lines of cultural affinity embodied in myths, memories, symbols and values retained by a given cultural unit of population.

— Anthony D. Smith Nationalism and Modernism (1998)

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More quotes by Anthony D. Smith

Constructionists...are unable to grasp and credit the emotional depth of loyalties to historical nations and nationalisms.

The Nation in History (2000)

For a global culture seems unable to offer the qualities of collective faith, dignity and hope that only a "religion surrogate", with its promise of a territorial culture-community across the generations, can provide.

Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Persians, Chinese and Japanese could be cited as examples of ethnic continuity, since, despite massive cultural changes over the centuries, certain key identifying components—name, language, customs, religious community and territorial association—were broadly maintained and reproduced for millennia.

Nationalism and Modernism (1998)

Perhaps the central question in our understanding of nationalism is the role of the past in the creation of the present. … For nationalists themselves, the role of the past is clear and unproblematic. The nation was always there, indeed it is part of the natural order, even when it was submerged in the hearts of its members.

Gastronomy or Geology? The Role of Nationalism in the Reconstruction of Nations (1994)

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