Perry Anderson facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Perry Anderson
|
|
|---|---|
Anderson in 2012
|
|
| Born |
Francis Rory Peregrine Anderson
11 September 1938 (age 86) London, England
|
| Alma mater | Worcester College, Oxford |
| Occupation | Historian and political essayist |
| Spouse(s) |
Juliet Mitchell
(m. 1962; div. 1972) |
| Relatives | Benedict Anderson (brother) |
Francis Rory Peregrine "Perry" Anderson (born 11 September 1938) is a British thinker, historian, and writer. He is known for his ideas on history, politics, and culture. A big part of his work focuses on a way of thinking called Western Marxism.
Anderson is perhaps most famous for leading the New Left Review magazine. He is a Professor of History and Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Anderson has written many books, including Different Speeds, Same Furies and Disputing Disaster. His brother was the political scientist Benedict Anderson.
Early Life and Education
Perry Anderson was born in London, England, on September 11, 1938. His father, James Carew O'Gorman Anderson, worked for the Chinese Maritime Customs. His mother, Veronica Beatrice Mary Bigham, was English.
Anderson attended Eton College, a famous school, and then went to Worcester College, Oxford University. He earned his first degree there. When he was younger, Anderson even wrote a bit about rock music under the name Richard Merton.
Career as a Writer and Editor
In 1962, Anderson became the editor of the New Left Review. This is an important magazine that discusses politics and culture. He held this job for twenty years, helping to shape many new ideas.
In 1974, Anderson published two very important history books. Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism looked at how feudalism, a system where land was exchanged for service, came to be. Lineages of the Absolutist State explored how absolute monarchies, where kings had total power, developed. These books covered European history from ancient times up to the 1800s. They became very well-known because Anderson combined history, philosophy, and political ideas in his writing.
In the 1980s, Anderson started teaching as a professor at the New School for Social Research in New York City. He returned to edit New Left Review again in 2000 for three more years. Even after retiring, he stayed involved with the magazine. As of 2025, he continues to write for the London Review of Books and teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Key Works
Perry Anderson has written many books that explore history, politics, and ideas. Here are some of his notable works:
- Passages From Antiquity to Feudalism (1974)
- Lineages of the Absolutist State (1974)
- Considerations on Western Marxism (1976)
- Arguments within English Marxism (1980)
- In the Tracks of Historical Materialism (1983)
- English Questions (1992)
- A Zone of Engagement (1992)
- The Origins of Postmodernity (1998)
- Spectrum: From Right to Left in the World of Ideas (2005)
- The New Old World (2009)
- The Indian Ideology (2012)
- American Foreign Policy and Its Thinkers (2014)
- The H-Word: The Peripeteia of Hegemony (2017)
- Brazil Apart: 1964-2019 (2019)
- Ever Closer Union?: Europe in the West (2021)
- Different Speeds, Same Furies: Powell, Proust and other Literary Forms (2022)
- Disputing Disaster: A Sextet on the Great War (2024)
See also
In Spanish: Perry Anderson para niños
