In an interview on Divided Cities

He’s also saying that the idea of nation and patriotism emerged with the printing press? Simply because even in very small nations one does not meet most of one’s fellow countrymen. One reads about them or watches them on TV.

Exactly. Books are written, newspapers printed, and of course maps drawn. Somebody, at some point, gets out his pencil and the question is always who’s behind that pencil? Which takes us back to the divided city. Who draws the line? In the divided city you always have a line or lines and somebody drew those too. Somebody comes down and fiddles around with the map redistributing identity and territory – and somebody like Anderson is saying, ‘I want to know who was holding that pencil before I get too worked up about what happened after they drew that line.’ So that’s the view that Anderson provides.