Gemeinschaft/Gesellschaft dichotomy in Anderson’s approach to community since the key distinction seems to be between face-to-face community based on familiarity and interaction and impersonal community based on the exercise of imagination. I believe, however, that it is the recognition of the role that imagination plays in all forms of community life that helps account for the extraordinary influence of Anderson’s concept of “imagined community.
In any case, that is what I have taken from it.