Hobsbawm eric biography

Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm, CH, FBA, FRSL (; 9 June 1917 – 1 October 2012) was a BritishMarxist historian. He worked on the rise of industrial capitalism, socialism, and nationalism. His best-known works include his trilogy about what he called the "long 19th century" (The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848, The Age of Capital: 1848–1875 and The Age of Empire: 1875–1914), The Age of Extremes.

Other websites

Quotations related to Eric Hobsbawm at Wikiquote

• Eric Hobsbawm on IMDb
• Eric Hobsbawm pageArchived 2012-09-25 at the Wayback Machine at David Higham.
• Profile in the London Review of Books
• Maya Jaggi, "A question of faith", The Guardian, 14 September 2002.
• Richard W. Slatta, "Eric J. Hobsbawm’s Social Bandit: A Critique and Revision"Archived 2010-07-13 at the Wayback Machine, A Contracorriente, 2004.
• http://www.international.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=7315Archived 2004-03-02 at the Wayback Machine
• Interview with Eric Hobsbawm and Donald Sassoon: European Identity and Diversity in DialogueArchived 2010-07-01 at the Wayback Machine, Barcelona Metropolis, Spring 2008.
• Eric Hobsbawm interviewed by Alan MacfarlaneArchived 2020-05-11 at the Wayback Machine, 13 September 2009 (film).
• Where have the rebels gone? An interview with Eric Hobsbawm (video), Books & Ideas, 21 January 2010.
• World Distempers: interview with Eric Hobsbawm, New Left Review 61, January–February 2010.
• Brief bio and links to articles, Spartacus Educational
• "Professor Eric Hobsbawm" on Desert Island Discs, 10 March 1995.
• Remembering Eric Hobsbawm, Historian for Social Justice. Eric Foner for The Nation. 1 October 2012.

Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History

By the time of his death in 2012, Eric Hobsbawm was the most widely read historian in the world. His books were translated into over 50 languages. They sold a million copies in Brazil alone.

His influence on the discipline of history was immense. But he was not just a writer: he was also present at some of the key moments of twentieth-century history, from the Nazi seizure of power in Berlin and the election of the Popular Front in France to the crisis of international communism in 1956 and the rise of New Labour in Britain in the 1980s. In this lecture, drawing on his recently published biography, Sir Richard J Evans explores Eric Hobsbawm’s life and deals with some of the controversies it has aroused.

Sir Richard J. Evans is Provost of Gresham College, London, and Regius Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of numerous books on modern German and European history, including The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power and The Third Reich at War. He was the principal expert witness in the libel action brought against Deborah Lipstadt in 2000, recently the subject of the movie, Denial.

Eric Hobsbawm was a historian and a Communist. The first pursuit brought him great success. When he died, in 2012, at the age of ninety-five, nearly all of his books were still in print, his writings had been translated into more than fifty languages, and he was eulogized across the globe. He left behind an astonishing body of work, including a widely read tetralogy spanning the years 1789-1991 and a vocabulary that revolutionized the study of modern history: the “invention of tradition,” “primitive rebels,” the “general crisis” of the seventeenth century, the “dual revolution,” the “long nineteenth century,” and the “short twentieth century.”

The second pursuit ended less well. Hobsbawm joined the Communist Party in 1936 and stayed in it for about fifty years. Not only did the cause to which he had devoted his life expire in infamy but the rubbish that it had promised to sweep from the stage—ethnic and national chauvinism—would, in time, make a new bid for legitimacy. As early as 1990, Hobsbawm foresaw how the disintegration of the Soviet Union would accelerate forces that “have been kept frozen for up to 70 years.” He came to see the consequences of that disintegration less as the disappointment of his hopes than as a coda to “the most murderous century” in history, which saw, in Europe, a revival of torture, the deliberate slaughter of millions, the collapse of state structures, and the erosion of norms of social solidarity.

“Losers,” Hobsbawm once said, “make the best historians.” Yet, if it was Hobsbawm’s destiny to enjoy intellectual success while suffering political failure, the experience may have been more generative than he realized. It gave him his abiding historical theme: the struggle of political men and women to get on top of their world, and the economic forces that bested them. As is true of all great historians, irony was Hobsbawm’s signature, the reversal of fortune his ink. The reason was simple: “Nothing . . . can sharpen the historian’s mi

British academic historian and Marxist historiographer (1917–2012)

"Hobsbawm" redirects here. For the British businessman, son of Eric Hobsbawm, see Andy Hobsbawm. For the British academic, daughter of Eric Hobsbawm, see Julia Hobsbawm.

Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm (; 9 June 1917 – 1 October 2012) was a British Marxist historian of the rise of industrial capitalism, socialism and nationalism. His best-known works include his tetralogy about what he called the "long 19th century" (The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848, The Age of Capital: 1848–1875 and The Age of Empire: 1875–1914) and the "short 20th century" (The Age of Extremes), and an edited volume that introduced the influential idea of "invented traditions". A life-long Marxist, his socio-political convictions influenced the character of his work.

Hobsbawm was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and spent his childhood mainly in Vienna and Berlin. Following the death of his parents and the rise to power of Adolf Hitler, Hobsbawm moved to London with his adoptive family. After serving in the Second World War, he obtained his PhD in history at the University of Cambridge. In 1998, he was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour. He was president of Birkbeck, University of London, from 2002 until his death. In 2003, he received the Balzan Prize for European History since 1900, "for his brilliant analysis of the troubled history of 20th century Europe and for his ability to combine in-depth historical research with great literary talent."

Early life and education

Eric Hobsbawm was born in 1917 in Alexandria, Egypt. His father was Leopold Percy Hobsbaum (né Obstbaum), a Jewish merchant from the East End of London of Polish Jewish descent. His mother was Nelly Hobsbaum (née Grün), who was from a middle-class Austrian Jewish family. Although both of his parents were Jewish, neither was observant. His early childhood was spent in