Benedict Richard O'Gorman Anderson (August 26, 1936 – December 13, 2015) was an American academic and writer. He was a polyglot.He was the Aaron L. Binenkorb Professor Emeritus of International Studies, Government & Asian Studies at Cornell University. He was best known for his book Imagined Communities, first published in 1983. He worked on the "Cornell Paper." That report showed that the official story of Indonesia's 30 September Movement and the Indonesian killings of 1965–66 was not true. Indonesia forced him to leave that country.^[1]

Anderson was born in Kunming, China, to James O'Gorman Anderson and Veronica Beatrice Bigham. In 1941 the family moved to California.^[2] In 1957, Anderson received a Bachelor of Arts in Classics from Cambridge University, and he later earned a Ph.D. from Cornell's Department of Government, where he studied modern Indonesia under the guidance of George Kahin. He was the brother of historian Perry Anderson.

Anderson died in Batu, Malang, in his sleep of heart failure on December 13, 2015 at the age of 79.^[3][4]

• A short biography Archived 2013-01-13 at the Wayback Machine
• "The Nation as Imagined Community" Archived 2013-11-03 at the Wayback Machine An excerpt from Imagined Communities

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