Thanks. There were three significantly Marxist history departments in the US back in the 1970s and 1980s: Northern Illinois University, Rutgers, and Rochester. NIU History was the most classically Marxist and the department was quite good, well above the rest of the university. Big shot left intellectuals came through to lecture. The better students were expected to read Marx in the original up through Capital. We also read widely outside history --- so kept up with all the old and new left stuff in other fields. We read and talked about everything we could get our hands on. Field boundaries didn't seem to matter that much to me. Went into Chicago and up to Madison bookstores a bunch. It was pretty cool. There was a radical community across under grad and grad student and faculty. I fell into it by accident, lucky. The downside: it was pretty much all Western Marxism with very little on Mao and radical developments in the Third World. Very core state. And way too purely academic and armchair for the most part by the time I was there.
Though the sharpest radical prof there, very underestimated, was a Latin Americanist: Ben Keen. Great scholar and teacher, prince of a man. And there was a very quiet Maoist you could take a course on the Chinese Revolution with: Jim Shirley.
I honestly do not feel I am a Marxist because I need to know so much more. And I, of course, do not treat him as a "god". But, I immigrated from the US many years ago and lived in Latin America, I worked, learned, felt free, and had a young, brilliant student who is now in his 40s. He had a keen and brilliant mind and while I was working with him to improve his English, he would give me books from time to time with no pressure to read, "Here," he would say, "this is worth reading, and little by little I was being introduced to Marx and socialism. Born and educated in the US, a undergraduate political science student and Latin American specialist, I was mis-educated and ignorant in the US, but I realized that years before. Chomsky, Zinn, and others had opened the world to me on my own, and I pursued my own self-educated research in many areas in spite of three and a half years of further formal studies. We need to become auto-didacts! This determination and mindset is essential. Paul is good, too. He breaks new ground, seeks this intellectual freedom. We also need to learn other languages, my living mentor is a Brazilian who speaks seven languages, another is an Argentine who speaks English as I do. I am working on Portuguese, too, at an advanced age and this year visited, this time, Brazil and Argentina. Having other languages is a liberating and revelatory experience, it is essential to life, learning, and liberation. Learn Marx, learn languages, truly enter into the world. Never too late to start. As we say in Spanish, !Adelante! Forward!
The 'fullest' education I received in my 67 years of living , was an opportunity that everyone should be able to access easily, travel. My 4 years in Brazil opened eyes that weren't even aware of being closed.
I should go read Marx instead of looking for your typos.
I did order Luke Epplin’s baseball book that you recommended a week or so ago.
In the paragraph after writing that the third mistake doesn’t concern us: “They was shot….”
Under Point 12: “If this seems.”
Read me too. I have more information on things that happened after March 14, 1883 than Marx does.
Thanks for the editing. Good book. Larry Doby was almost as big a deal as Jackie Robinson for the integration of MLB.
I appreciate your erudite discussion of Marxism.
Thanks. There were three significantly Marxist history departments in the US back in the 1970s and 1980s: Northern Illinois University, Rutgers, and Rochester. NIU History was the most classically Marxist and the department was quite good, well above the rest of the university. Big shot left intellectuals came through to lecture. The better students were expected to read Marx in the original up through Capital. We also read widely outside history --- so kept up with all the old and new left stuff in other fields. We read and talked about everything we could get our hands on. Field boundaries didn't seem to matter that much to me. Went into Chicago and up to Madison bookstores a bunch. It was pretty cool. There was a radical community across under grad and grad student and faculty. I fell into it by accident, lucky. The downside: it was pretty much all Western Marxism with very little on Mao and radical developments in the Third World. Very core state. And way too purely academic and armchair for the most part by the time I was there.
Though the sharpest radical prof there, very underestimated, was a Latin Americanist: Ben Keen. Great scholar and teacher, prince of a man. And there was a very quiet Maoist you could take a course on the Chinese Revolution with: Jim Shirley.
I honestly do not feel I am a Marxist because I need to know so much more. And I, of course, do not treat him as a "god". But, I immigrated from the US many years ago and lived in Latin America, I worked, learned, felt free, and had a young, brilliant student who is now in his 40s. He had a keen and brilliant mind and while I was working with him to improve his English, he would give me books from time to time with no pressure to read, "Here," he would say, "this is worth reading, and little by little I was being introduced to Marx and socialism. Born and educated in the US, a undergraduate political science student and Latin American specialist, I was mis-educated and ignorant in the US, but I realized that years before. Chomsky, Zinn, and others had opened the world to me on my own, and I pursued my own self-educated research in many areas in spite of three and a half years of further formal studies. We need to become auto-didacts! This determination and mindset is essential. Paul is good, too. He breaks new ground, seeks this intellectual freedom. We also need to learn other languages, my living mentor is a Brazilian who speaks seven languages, another is an Argentine who speaks English as I do. I am working on Portuguese, too, at an advanced age and this year visited, this time, Brazil and Argentina. Having other languages is a liberating and revelatory experience, it is essential to life, learning, and liberation. Learn Marx, learn languages, truly enter into the world. Never too late to start. As we say in Spanish, !Adelante! Forward!
The 'fullest' education I received in my 67 years of living , was an opportunity that everyone should be able to access easily, travel. My 4 years in Brazil opened eyes that weren't even aware of being closed.