Abstract
This 70th birthday tribute to Keith Jenkins is articulated about two intertwined strands of thought, two leitmotifs, which in their combination might, I hope, be seen to succinctly capture, in a broad yet a necessarily brief sweep of the brush, a picture of Keith as observed from what I have called in the paper's title ‘a very particular perspective’. That is to say that from my own perspective as a student I have set out to both explain something of the development of Keith's philosophical/theoretical position over some, let us say, 30 years while, at the same time, keeping in view his central concern which has always been to directly address students and to make the often difficult arguments circulating in the field of historical theory readily available and accessible to them.