Prof. Sperber,

thank you for doing this.

My questions to you are:

• You wrote extensively about transnational revolutions in Europe. How would place the United States in this context (if at all). Would you agree with Hobsbawm's assessment that the US under Andrew Jackson also underwent a comparable phase of reform?

• You most recent book is a biography of Karl Marx. What motivated you to write a Marx biography?

• Your university profile mentions you are working on a global history of the latter half of the 20th century tentatively called "The Age of Interconnection". Can you give us a preview of the lines of inquiry this book will pursue, especially in regards to popular politics and protests?

How did Marx interact with the increasingly republican/revisionist tendencies within the global socialist movement in the 19th century? Did he always oppose this in favor of strictly revolutionary socialism or did he support it in some circumstances?

Before Marx, "the Left" seems to have been upper class Utopian Socialists like the Fabians on one hand, and working class anarchists like Proudhon and Bakunin on the other, as well as some more mystical types like Blanqui. How did Marxism become dominant the left? How important was the International Working Man's Association, how important was the Russian Revolution? How tied was pre-1917 Marxism tied to Social Democratic parties?

Separately, I'm paraphrasing, but Engels said that they favored the word "communist" because communist was working class and threatening" "socialist" was respectable and upper class (only a little ironic coming from Engels). What was communism before Marxism?

Professor Sperber, thanks for doing the AMA, I'm a big fan of your work, and in fact I regularly assign your history of the European Revolutions 1848-51 for my modern European history course (upper-division undergraduate, so mainly juniors and seniors, about half of them history majors).

I'm curious to know about your views of historiography more broadly: who do you think are the most important and/or most exciting historians of the last 20 years, on any topic? What are your favorite books, either ones that were most influential on your thinking, ones you have found most effective for teaching, or ones that you simply most enjoy reading or re-reading?

Thanks for joining us! I have a few questions:

1. How did liberal and nationalist Germans view the late stages of the Italian Risorgimento (I'm thinking the second and third wars of independence), especially in light of their own failures in 1848?

2. The German Empire was one of the most industrialized states in the world and a key player in the second Industrial Revolution, but what did German industry look like prior to unification? Was the experience of the new laboring and managerial classes substantially different across the various German states? Was industrialization a more or less traumatic experience in some regions?

Would you agree that Bismarck nationalized healthcare to satiate labor unrest? My understanding was that he nationalized healthcare and then banned the socialist party.

Thank you for doing this! I thoroughly enjoyed the audiobook version of your amazing book on Marx last year.

I wanted to ask a question related to how Marx' life and work is framed in your book.

Specifically, what made Marx so influential and attractive to so many of his contemporaries?

In your book, you evidently take time to take him off the 'pedestal' that more admiring biographers had placed him on. You focus, among other things, on the infighting he instigated, even against close friends and mentors. While these issues were very enlightening, it left me asking how such a petty and irritable individual attracted the loyalty of friends like Engels. You recognize that he was very intelligent, but intelligence alone is not necessarily capable of attracting the kind of support and friendship that he was able to earn.

Again, thanks again for doing this and writing such a great work of scholarship.

Thanks for doing the AMA. I have one question which might be kinda subjective: The modern history of Europe is actually always consisted of so many military conflicts. So considering this fact, how do we correctly think of the relationship between the wars and the evolvement of culture and religion? Does the development of society result in those conflicts or it is like wars push the development?

Thank you so much for doing this AMA, professor Sperber!

I hope my question isn't too tangled or based on wrong assumptions: If I understand it correctly, the Prussian constitution of 1850 provided religious freedom to all the practicing groups within the kingdom. Was this a "hard sell" at the time? What was the relationship between the government and the Jewish population? Did this help to curb anti-semitism in some way?

What's your opinion of Isaiah Berlin's biography on Marx? Referring to Marx's Jewish background in his essay "Benjamin Disraeli and Karl Marx," he writes that Marx seemed like "a proud and defiant pariah, not so much of the friend of the proletariat but as of a member of a long humiliated race." Do you agree?

How important was the German Social Democratic Party in creating a model for Socialist parties in Europe in the late 19th early 20th century? What kind of relationships did the German socialists have with other socialist parties and leaders?

I understand that the German social Democratic Party was considered the best organized socialist party in Europe in the late 19th century. How did the German Social Democratic Party organize itself so effectively? What kinds of social activities did party activists organize? Was a working class identity a product of party activists and intellectuals, or was it something that already existed and activists nurtured?

Thanks for doing the AMA.

How would the various social classes have responded to unification, and did it vary extensively by province? Likewise, has there been a change in tactic and approach towards populist politicking from Bismarck's era versus Europe today, and how engaged were the aristocracy?

Hello Dr. Sperber, long-time follower here. What would you say was the breakdown between ideological differences and personal ambition for Marx's rivalry with August Willich and his associates within the mid-19th century communist crowd?

In the American Civil War, the U.S. saw itself as the key bastion of popular government in a global context, especially after the failure of the 1848 revolutions. Did advocates of popular government pay close attention to the American Civil War, or attach much importance to the Union's eventual victory as a vindication of government by the people?