In graduate school, I would have held Perry Anderson’s essays “Imperium” and “Consilium” with trembling hands. Essays of such historiographical breadth and theoretical depth would have ignited discussions in coffee shops and bars and debates across seminar tables and classrooms. As readers have witnessed at this blog, responses that build upon Anderson’s arguments flow easily in a variety of productive directions. For me, though, there are additional professional/personal reasons Anderson’s work would have struck me hard in graduate school. I did my doctorate in U.S. history at Ohio University in large part because I wanted to study with John Lewis Read more