Over the holiday break I spent a few days in the archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society, on the beautiful if cold University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, looking at the papers of Studies on the Left, the lively journal that ran from 1959 to 1967. (I’m giving a paper on Studies at the upcoming OAH meeting as part of a panel titled “Marx and Marxism: Taboo or Totem”—other panel participants: Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen [chair], Claire Rydell, Andrew Zimmerman, and James Livingston [comment].) The most joyful aspect of my time in these papers was reading the funny, smart, provocative, unflinching letters of Eleanor Read more