Editing Perry Anderson

{{Short description|British historian (born 1938)}}
{{for|the Canadian ice hockey player|Perry Anderson (ice hockey)}}
{{EngvarB|date=June 2023}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2023}}
{{Infobox academic <!-- For more information, see [[:Template:Infobox academic/doc]]. -->
| name = Perry Anderson
| image = Perry Anderson at Fronteiras do Pensamento Porto Alegre.jpg
| alt = 
| caption = Anderson in 2012
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| birth_name = Francis Rory Peregrine Anderson
| birth_date = {{birth-date and age|11 September 1938}}
| birth_place = London, England
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| occupation = Historian and political essayist
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| alma_mater = [[Worcester College, Oxford]]
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| school_tradition = [[New Left]]
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| spouse = {{marriage|[[Juliet Mitchell]]|1962|1972|reason=divorced}}
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| relatives = [[Benedict Anderson]] (brother)
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}}
'''Francis Rory Peregrine''' "'''Perry'''" '''Anderson''' (born 11 September 1938) is a British intellectual, political philosopher, historian and essayist. His work ranges across [[historical sociology]], [[intellectual history]], and [[cultural analysis]]. What unites Anderson's work is a preoccupation with [[Western Marxism]].{{Citation needed|date=April 2023}}

Anderson is perhaps best known as the moving force behind the ''[[New Left Review]]''. He is Professor of History and Sociology at the [[University of California, Los Angeles]] (UCLA). Anderson has written many books, most recently ''Different Speeds, Same Furies: Powell, Proust and other Literary Forms'' and ''Disputing Disaster: A Sextet on the Great War''. He is the brother of political scientist [[Benedict Anderson]] (1936–2015).

== Background and early life ==
Anderson was born in London on 11 September 1938.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Elliott |first1=Gregory |title=Perry Anderson: The Merciless Laboratory of History |year=1998 |publisher=U of Minnesota Press |isbn=978-0-8166-2966-4 |page=1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TmeeV9POhgsC&pg=PA1 |language=en}}</ref> His father, James Carew O'Gorman Anderson (1893–1946), known as Séamas, an official with the [[Chinese Maritime Customs]], was born into an [[Anglo-Irish]] family, the younger son of Brigadier-General Sir Francis Anderson, of [[Ballydavid]], [[County Waterford]].<ref>Sir Bernard Burke, Peter Townsend, ''Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry'' (1969), p. 41</ref> He was descended from the [[Clan Anderson|Anderson family]] of Ardbrake, [[Drummuir|Bothriphnie]], Scotland, who had settled in Ireland in the early 18th century.<ref name=shaemas>Perry Anderson, [http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n15/perry-anderson/a-belated-encounter A Belated Encounter] (Anderson's short biography of his father James)</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Journal of the Old Waterford Society 1994|url=http://snap.waterfordcoco.ie/collections/ejournals/101014/101014.pdf}} P. 7, para. 9.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/genealogicalhera00burkuoft|title=A genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry of Ireland|first1=Bernard|last1=Burke|first2=Arthur Charles|last2=Fox-Davies|date=29 August 1912|publisher=London : Harrison|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>

Anderson's mother, Veronica Beatrice Mary Bigham, was English,<ref>[http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/2231/1/WollmannBenedictAnderson-Wollman-Spencer.pdf "The Influence of Benedict Anderson".]</</ref> the daughter of [[Trevor Bigham]], who was the [[Deputy Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis|Deputy Commissioner]] of the London [[Metropolitan Police]], 1914–1931. Anderson's grandmother, Frances, Lady Anderson, belonged to the [[Gaelic Ireland|Gaelic]] [[Gorman (surname)|Gorman]] [[Irish clans|clan]] of [[County Clare]] and was the daughter of the [[Irish Home Rule Movement|Irish Home Rule]] Member of Parliament Major [[Purcell O'Gorman]],<ref name="clarelibrary.ie">James Frost, [http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/frost/chap9_macgormans.htm "The History and Topography of the County of Clare –  Pedigree of MacGorman (O'Gorman)"], Clare County Library.</ref><ref>[http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/frost/chap9_ui_bracain.htm "The History and Topography of the County of Clare – Ui Bracain..."], Clare County Library.</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=John O'Hart, Irish Pedigree's, or, The Origin and Stem of the Irish Nation|year=1892 |publisher=Dublin, J. Duffy and Co.; New York, Benziger Brothers |url=https://archive.org/details/irishpedigreesor_01ohar }}</ref> himself the son of Nicholas Purcell O'Gorman who had been involved with the [[Irish republicanism|Republican]] [[Society of United Irishmen]] during the [[Irish Rebellion of 1798|1798 Rebellion]], later becoming Secretary of the [[Catholic Association]] in the 1820s.<ref name="clarelibrary.ie"/><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/s3unitedirishmen00madduoft|title=The United Irishmen, their lives and times. With several additional memoirs, and authentic documents, heretofore unpublished; the whole matter newly arranged and revised. 2d series|first=Richard Robert|last=Madden|date=29 August 1858|publisher=Dublin, J. Duffy|via=Internet Archive}}</ref><ref>Kieran Sheedy, [http://www.irelandmidwest.com/clare/history/historyessays.htm "The United Irishmen of County Clare"], County Clare – Historical Essays.</ref> Anderson's father had previously been married to the novelist [[Stella Benson]], and it was after her death in 1933 that he married again.<ref name=shaemas/>

Anderson was educated at [[Eton College|Eton]] and [[Worcester College, Oxford]], where he took his first degree.<ref name="Elliott p. 1">Gregory Elliott (1998), [https://books.google.com/books?id=TmeeV9POhgsC Perry Anderson: The Merciless Laboratory of History, University of Minnesota Press], p. 1.</ref> Early in his life, Anderson made a brief foray into [[rock criticism]], writing under the pseudonym Richard Merton.<ref>{{cite book|page=60|quote=Prudence was displayed in the use of a pseudonym for two Andersonian forays onto the terrain of rock music, under the signature of Richard Merton, who opted for the Stones rather than the Beatles, and the Beach Boys rather than Bob Dylan.|title=Perry Anderson: The Merciless Laboratory of History|last=Elliott|first=Gregory|year=1998|publisher=U of Minnesota Press|isbn=0816629668}}</ref>

== Career ==
In 1962 Anderson became editor of the ''[[New Left Review]]'', a position he held for twenty years.<ref name=Blackwell/> As scholars of the [[New Left]] began to reassess their [[canon (basic principle)|canon]] in the mid-1970s, Anderson provided an influential perspective.<ref name=Blackwell>{{Cite book |title=The Blackwell Dictionary of Historians |last=Parker |first=David |editor=Cannon, John |editor-link=John Cannon (historian) |year=1988 |publisher=Basil Blackwell Ltd. |location=Oxford; New York |isbn=063114708X |pages=[https://archive.org/details/blackwelldiction0000unse_u4p6/page/8 8–9] |url=https://archive.org/details/blackwelldiction0000unse_u4p6/page/8 }}</ref> He published two major volumes of analytical history in 1974: ''[[Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism]]'' focuses on the creation and endurance of [[Feudalism|feudal social formations]], while ''[[Lineages of the Absolutist State]]'' examines [[Absolute monarchy|monarchical absolutism]]. Within their respective topics they are each vast in scope, assessing the whole history of Europe from classical times to the nineteenth century. The books achieved an instant prominence for Anderson, whose wide-ranging analysis [[wikt:synthesis|synthesis]]ed elements of history, philosophy, and [[political theory]].<ref name=Blackwell/>

In the 1980s, Anderson took office as a professor at the [[New School for Social Research]] in [[New York City|New York]].<ref name=Blackwell/> He returned as editor at ''NLR'' in 2000 for three more years, and after his retirement continued to serve on the journal's editorial committee. As of 2019, he has continued to make contributions to the ''[[London Review of Books]]'',<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/contributors/perry-anderson |title=Perry Anderson in the LRB Archive |author=London Review of Books |year=2012 |publisher=LRB Ltd. |access-date=29 May 2012 }}</ref> and pursued teaching as a Distinguished Professor of History and Sociology at the [[University of California, Los Angeles]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.history.ucla.edu/people/faculty?lid=252 |title=Perry R. Anderson, UCLA Faculty |author=UCLA Department of History |year=2012 |publisher=UCLA |access-date=29 May 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120412005907/http://www.history.ucla.edu/people/faculty?lid=252 |archive-date=12 April 2012}}</ref>

== Influence and criticism ==
{{BLP sources section|date=January 2021}}
Anderson bore the brunt of the disapproval of [[E. P. Thompson]] in the latter's ''The Poverty of Theory'', in a controversy during the late 1970s over the [[structuralist Marxism]] of [[Louis Althusser]], and the use of history and theory in the politics of the Left. In the mid-1960s, Thompson wrote an essay for the annual ''[[Socialist Register]]'' that rejected Anderson's view of [[aristocratic]] dominance of Britain's historical trajectory, as well as Anderson's seeming preference for continental European theorists over radical British traditions and [[empiricism]]. Anderson delivered two responses to Thompson's [[polemics]], first in an essay in ''New Left Review'' (January–February 1966) called "Socialism and Pseudo-Empiricism",<ref>{{Cite journal | last = Anderson | first = Perry | title = Socialism and pseudo-empiricism | journal = [[New Left Review]] | volume = I | issue = 35 | pages = 2–42 | publisher = New Left Review | date = January–February 1966 | url = http://newleftreview.org/I/35/perry-anderson-socialism-and-pseudo-empiricism }}</ref> and then in a more conciliatory yet ambitious overview, ''Arguments within English Marxism'' (1980).

While Anderson faced many attacks in his native Britain for favouring continental European philosophers over British thinkers, he did not spare [[Western Marxism|Western European Marxists]] from criticism, such as in his ''Considerations on Western Marxism'' (1976). Nevertheless, many of his assaults were delivered against [[postmodernist]] currents in continental Europe. In his book ''In the Tracks of Historical Materialism'', Anderson depicts Paris as the new capital of intellectual reaction.

== Works ==
* [https://archive.org/details/passagesfromanti0000ande ''Passages From Antiquity to Feudalism''] (1974). London: New Left Books. {{ISBN|090230870X}}.
* [https://archive.org/details/lineagesofabsolu0000perr_e3i1 ''Lineages of the Absolutist State''] (1974). London: New Left Books. {{ISBN|0902308165}}.
* ''Considerations on Western Marxism'' (1976). London: Verso. {{ISBN|0860917207}}.
* ''The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci'' [1976] (2017). London: Verso. {{ISBN|978-1786633729}}.
* ''Arguments within English Marxism'' (1980). London: Verso. {{ISBN|0860917274}}.
* ''In the Tracks of Historical Materialism'' (1983).  London: Verso. {{ISBN|0860910768}}.
* ''English Questions'' (1992). London: Verso. {{ISBN|0860913759}}.
* ''A Zone of Engagement'' (1992). London: Verso. {{ISBN|0860913775}}.
* [https://archive.org/details/originsofpostmod0000ande ''The Origins of Postmodernity''] (1998). London: Verso. {{ISBN|1859842224}}.
* [https://archive.org/details/spectrum0000ande ''Spectrum: From Right to Left in the World of Ideas''] (2005). London: Verso. {{ISBN|1859845274}}.
* ''[[The New Old World]]'' (2009). London: Verso. {{ISBN|9781844673124}}.
* ''[[The Indian Ideology]]'' (2012). New Delhi: Three Essays Collective. {{ISBN|9788188789924}}.
* ''[https://archive.org/details/americanforeignp0000ande American Foreign Policy and Its Thinkers]'' (2014). London: Verso. {{ISBN|178168667X}}.
* ''The H-Word: The Peripeteia of Hegemony'' (2017). London: Verso. {{ISBN|978-1786633682}}.
* ''Brazil Apart: 1964-2019'' (2019). London: Verso. {{ISBN|978-1788737944}}
* ''Ever Closer Union?: Europe in the West'' (2021). London: Verso. {{ISBN|978-1839764417}}
* ''Different Speeds, Same Furies: Powell, Proust and other Literary Forms'' (2022). London: Verso. {{ISBN|978-1804290798}}.
* ''Disputing Disaster: A Sextet on the Great War'' (2024) London: Verso. {{ISBN|978-1804297674}}

== References ==
{{Reflist|2}}

== Further reading ==
* Paul Blackledge, ''Perry Anderson, Marxism, and the New Left''. Merlin Press, 2004. {{ISBN|978-0-85036-532-0}}.
* [[Alex Callinicos]], [https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/callinicos/1984/xx/panderson.html 'Perry Anderson and Western Marxism'], International Socialism, 23 (1984). 
* {{Cite journal | last = Colletti | first = Lucio | author-link = Lucio Colletti | title = A political and philosophical interview | journal = [[New Left Review]] | volume = I | issue = 86 | publisher = New Left Review | date = July–August 1974 | url = https://newleftreview.org/I/86/lucio-colletti-a-political-and-philosophical-interview}}
* Gregory Elliott, [https://books.google.com/books?id=TmeeV9POhgsC ''Perry Anderson: The Merciless Laboratory of History'']. University of Minnesota Press, 1998. {{ISBN|978-0-8166-2966-4}}.
* {{cite journal|last=Merton|first=Richard|date=January–February 1968|url=https://newleftreview.org/issues/I47/articles/richard-merton-comment-on-beckett-s-stones|title=Comment on Beckett's 'Stones'|via=newleftreview.org|journal=[[New Left Review]]|volume=1|issue=47|url-access=registration}} A commentary on [[the Rolling Stones]], in particular songs from their 1966–67 LPs ''[[Aftermath (Rolling Stones album)|Aftermath]]'' and ''[[Between the Buttons]]''.

== External links ==
{{Wikiquote}}
* [http://www.thenation.com/authors/perry-anderson Archive of Perry Anderson's articles for ''The Nation'']
* [http://newleftreview.org/authors/perry-anderson Archive of Perry Anderson's articles for ''The New Left Review'']
* [http://www.newstatesman.com/node/134374 The New Statesman Profile – Perry Anderson]
* {{YouTube|jjTKsRfVM9Q|Television interview on "Conversations with History", 2001}}
* [http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n13/perry-anderson/gandhi-centre-stage "Gandhi Centre Stage" from the ''London Review of Books'', 2012-07-05]

{{British New Left}}
{{Historians of Europe|state=collapsed}}
{{Criticism of postmodernism}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Anderson, Perry}}
[[Category:1938 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Marxist theorists]]
[[Category:British Marxist historians]]
[[Category:Alumni of Worcester College, Oxford]]
[[Category:University of California, Los Angeles faculty]]
[[Category:Intellectual historians]]
[[Category:British sociologists]]
[[Category:British political writers]]
[[Category:English essayists]]
[[Category:British Marxist writers]]
[[Category:British critics of postmodernism]]
[[Category:People educated at Eton College]]
[[Category:Writers about globalization]]
[[Category:British academic journal editors]]