Eric Hobsbawm, "The Invention of Tradition"
in this piece, he notes that invented traditions have a "peculiarity," namely that their continuity with "a [real] historic past" is "largely factitious"
Rybczynski quotes this passage as an epigraph (p. 1), and also supplies his own example of Scottish tartan and specifically the idea of "associating specific tartans with different families," which emerged "during the first part of the nineteenth century--not in the mists of Celtic antiquity" and was a result of (among other factors) "a sales campaign by cloth manufacturers who were seeking to develop larger markets for their products" (footnote on 7)
or his example of national anthems (9-10)