LAUSR

Martin J. Sklar was my intellectual and political mentor. He was my teacher when I was a graduate student at Northern Illinois University in the mid-1970s. When I became a historian, I was deeply influenced by his work on periodization, the capitalism-socialism mix, disaccumulation, and postimperialism. However, after he embraced the political right during the last ten years of his life, our political differences kept us from continuing our friendship and scholarly interchange. My discussion of Sklar's last work, Creating the American Century,1 will reflect my respect for his great scholarly contributions but also my disagreement with (and explanation of)…