--- - |2 Abstract Michael Billig's book, Banal Nationalism, published in 1995, has a significant international reputation and is one of the books most commonly quoted in Anglophone studies on nationalism. This article follows on from the various books and articles that were published for the 20th anniversary of the book and underlines the way in which the posterity of this thesis is partly based on a misunderstanding, or a misappropriation. In a context in which the end of nations seemed imminent, Banal Nationalism aimed to demonstrate that, on the contrary, nationalism was indeed spread massively and invisibly throughout the world, and particularly in established Western democracies. Yet today this book is considered one of the founding texts of the bottom‐up approach to national identity, which puts individuals at the heart of the fabrication of nations. This article discusses how this interpretation has come about. - 'Nations and Nationalism, Volume 24, Issue 4, Page 841-856, October 2018. '