Benedict Anderson and Negative Comparisons

"In my case, Ben gently steered me toward the scholarship in American politics, resulting in a dissertation that compared American national state-building in the Progressive era to the construction of a colonial state in early 20th century Philippines. The research puzzle I have been working on – why Filipino Muslims, in this age of the war on terrorism and the Great American Satan, remain strongly pro-American – continues to be guided by the negative comparisons that Ben urged us to investigate."