Background Anderson was born on August 26, 1936, in
Kunming,
China, to an Irish and
Anglo-Irish father and
English mother. His father, James Carew O'Gorman Anderson, was an official with
Chinese Maritime Customs. His mother's family originated in
Lancaster. Anderson's maternal grandfather
Trevor Bigham was the
Deputy Commissioner of the
Metropolitan Police from 1914 to 1931. One of Anderson's grandmothers, Lady Frances O'Gorman, belonged to the
Gaelic Mac Gormáin clan of
County Clare and was the daughter of the
Irish Home Rule MP Major
Purcell O'Gorman. Major O'Gorman was the son of Nicholas Purcell O'Gorman who had been involved with the
Republican Society of United Irishmen during the
1798 Rising, later becoming Secretary of the
Catholic Association in the 1820s. Anderson also had roots in
County Waterford through his O'Gorman side.
California, Ireland and Cambridge Anderson's family moved to
California in 1941 to avoid the Japanese invasion during the
Second Sino-Japanese War and then to Ireland in 1945. While at Cambridge, he became an
anti-imperialist during the
Suez Crisis, which influenced his later work as a
Marxist and
anti-colonialist thinker. Anderson was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994. In 1998, Anderson's return trip to Indonesia was sponsored by the Indonesian publication
Tempo, and he gave a public speech in which he criticized the Indonesia opposition for "its timidity and historical amnesia—especially with regard to the massacres of 1965–1966". According to close friend
Tariq Ali, the cause of death was due to
heart failure. He had been in the middle of correcting the proofs of his memoir
A Life Beyond Boundaries, which had initially been published in Japanese translation. He is survived by his two
adopted sons of Indonesian origin. == Key concepts ==