I question your premise that Hobsbawm was never popular in American academia, but recognize the core truth of it. I suspect you have at least half of the answer in the questions you pose, namely, that it was a Cold War thing and that "American historiographical traditions developed independently from Europe and Latin America."

Among historians, Eric Hobsbawn (1917-2012) has always been my hero. His work is brilliant and encyclopedic while offering insights and meaning into past events. I have always recommended him to my students - all in the US!

There was this problem that he was a Marxist, and that clearly put off a lot of people on both sides of the Atlantic. During the Cold War, that label could be death, and I suspect there was not a little effort to squelch his reputation. Regardless, the torch that is Hobsbawm has continued to shine.

Of equal importance from the US point of view is the fact that he wrote about Europe. Americanists can be insular in their interests and readings. I suspect that many Americanists have simply not had much (if any) exposure to Hobsbawm. One can lead a long, productive academic life without reading any number of important scholars. There is, simply, so much out there that keeping up is a challenge.

With a foot on either shore of the Atlantic, I naturally came upon Hobsbawm. It was not because I was directed to him. I simply discovered him on my own, and I was completely impressed. While beginning the effort of writing my early monograph, The Roar and the Silence: A History of Virginia City and the Comstock Lode (1998), I realized that the place was so complex, contradicting itself during its heyday (1860-1880) but also changing dramatically over time. I had been reading Hobsbawm, and I fell in love with the way he handled contradictions in the his series "The Age of ..." He would prove one thing and then its opposite. His chapter on how Europe was becoming unified in its point of view in the nineteenth century was followed with a chapter on nationalism, how ethnicity was tugging apart any sense of unity.

I decided to use Hobsbawm's approach for my study of the Comstock Mining District. Whenever I felt I was able to prove something, I considered what its opposite might be, and then I tried to prove it: the place was violent/the place was peaceful; the place was sinful; the place was saintly. And over time, the place was focused on mining/the place was focused on the arts and tourism.

One of my reviewers (who hated one of my professors) wanted desperately to stomp on my early career and did everything possible to prevent the publication of my dissertation (it was anonymous peer review, but his review was partly handwritten and I recognized his handwriting). He said he did not understand the contradictions I had used and he said I lacked any theoretical framework for my book. As a result, I placed Hobsbawm prominently at the beginning of my acknowledgements and explained my method. That was the end of it. The Press set aside that reviewer and I understand they have never used him again!

The point here is that I wrote on an American topic and did, in fact, use Hobsbawm, but his approach was not clearly recognized.

During my graduate studies, I took historiography twice, first from a medievalist and second from an Americanist. The first was an exploration of theory and how historians fit into a theoretical discussion and how the theories evolved over time. The second was bibliographical - making sure we understood all the people who had written on American history and what they had written. Theory was only a slim part of the pie. This dichotomy is not universal, but it was shockingly apparent to me (having started as a Europeanist).

Some of the neglect of Hobsbawm is likely because he was a Marxist, but much of it was an inclination on the part of Americanists to stick to their own shore and to avoid theoretical discussions. All grand modeling on my part, however, is bound to be picked apart by those who come to the table with contradictory evidence. For that is the historical process!

edit: without being too heavy handed theoretically, it is important to note that Hobsbawm (and I) were using the dialectic, the tension of opposites (which some Marxist will express better than I do) - a cornerstone of Marxist methodology.