Postage stamps and postal history of French Sudan 1931 became the most common. They include a Fulani milkmaid, the door of the Djenne residence, and a boatman on the river Niger. From 1944 to 1959, the French West Africa issues were used in the French Sudan. Various territories were joined in 1895 by the French colonial authorities in a federation known as French West Africa (AOF). These territories included Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan (now Mali), French Guinea (now Guinea), Côte d'Ivoire, Niger, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) and Dahomey (now Benin). The French colonial territories in the federation issued their own postage stamps until 1943. In many cases
What Is a Nation? and continues to be invoked. Political historian Karl Deutsch, in a quote sometimes mistakenly attributed to Renan, said that a nation is "a group of people united by a mistaken view about the past and a hatred of their neighbours". Benedict Anderson's 1983 work Imagined Communities, which states that a nation is an "imagined political community", argues that Renan contradicts himself when he says French people must have forgotten the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, yet does not explain what it is. In other words, Renan assumes that all his readers will remember the very massacre he says they have forgotten.