Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History

by Richard J. Evans

Overview

Eric Hobsbawm's works have had a nearly incalculable effect across generations of readers and students, influencing more than the practice of history but also the perception of it. Born in Alexandria, Egypt, of second-generation British parents, Hobsbawm was orphaned at age fourteen in 1931. Living with an uncle in Berlin, he experienced the full force of world economic depression, and in the charged reaction to it in Germany was forced to choose between Nazism and Communism, which was no choice at all. Hobsbawm's lifelong allegiance to Communism inspired his pioneering work in social history, particularly the trilogy for which he is most famous--The Age of Revolution, The Age of Capital, and The Age of Empire--covering what he termed "the long nineteenth century" in Europe. Selling in the millions of copies, these held sway among generations of readers, some of whom went on to have prominent careers in politics and business. In this comprehensive biography of Hobsbawm, acclaimed historian Richard Evans (author of The Third Reich Trilogy, among other works) offers both a living portrait and vital insight into one of the most influential intellectual figures of the twentieth century. Using exclusive and unrestricted access to the unpublished material, Evans places Hobsbawm's writings within their historical and political context. Hobsbawm's Marxism made him a controversial figure but also, uniquely and universally, someone who commanded respect even among those who did not share-or who even outright rejected-his political beliefs. Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History gives us one of the 20th century's most colorful and intellectually compelling figures. It is an intellectual life of the century itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190459666
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	03/29/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Richard Evans was Regius Professor of history at Cambridge University and, until his retirement, President of Wolfson College. He is Provost of Gresham College in London, and was knighted for his service to scholarship in 2012.

Table of Contents

Preface Chapter 1: 'The English Boy' 1917-1933 Chapter 2: 'Ugly as Sin, but a Mind' 1933-1936 Chapter 3: 'A Freshman who Knows Everything' 1936-1939 Chapter 4: 'A Left-Wing Intellectual in the British Army' 1939-1946 Chapter 5: 'Outsider in the Movement' 1946-1954 Chapter 6: 'A Dangerous Character' 1954-1962 Chapter 7: 'Paperback Writer' 1962-1975 Chapter 8: 'Intellectual Guru' 1975-1987 Chapter 9: 'Jeremiah' 1987-1999 Chapter 10: 'National Treasure' 1999-2012 Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

"[An] exhaustively researched biography of the renowned Marxist historian . . . Evans's skillful portrait adds rich nuance to the story of how Hobsbawm's politics informed his sprawling social histories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries."
-THE NEW YORKER

"A comprehensive and thoroughly researched biography . . . Mr. Evans is a historian of great distinction . . . the research [in ERIC HOBSBAWM] is meticulous."
-THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

"Compellingly narrated and meticulously researched . . . [A] nuanced portrait of Hobsbawm's political and intellectual development."
-THE NATION

"A well-considered life of the influential British historian, written by a Cambridge University historian who himself is well-known for many important works . . . Evans clearly admires his subject but does not hesitate to consider the rougher edges-a book that will rightly bring new attention to both writers."
-KIRKUS, Starred Review

"[A] huge life study . . . [an] exceptionally well-researched biography."
-THE GUARDIAN

"This is an astonishing book: in its breadth, depth and detail and also in its almost palpable, and sometimes unpalatable, admiration of its subject."
-THE ARTS DESK

"The biography is a delight. Evans is extremely thorough, and his main character is great company."
-JEWISH CURRENTS

"Evans carefully reconstructs the story — journeys, interviews, finances and writings — but leaves it to the reader to assess the contribution of his protagonist. An admirer of Hobsbawm, Evans is neither fawning nor uncritical." — Ronald Grigor Suny, Labour History

From the Publisher

★ 2019-01-13

A well-considered life of the influential British historian, written by a Cambridge University historian who himself is well-known for many important works.

With an unusual name that came as a result of an immigration official's misrendering of the original Obstbaum, Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012) was unusually erudite at a very early age, well-traveled, and endlessly curious about the ways of the world. He took his birth in the year of the Russian Revolution as something of a talisman, and though Evans (The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815-1914, 2015, etc.) deems it a coincidence, it was "one that somehow stood as a symbol for the political commitment he was to gain later on." Already a Marxist as a teen, though one, fellow travelers complained, more given to debate than activism, Hobsbawm was a lifelong polymath who was equally at home in the literature stacks and the historical annals. As Evans enumerates, he devoured detective novels along with the Greek tragedies and works by authors in numerous languages, from Marlowe to Chekhov and beyond. Though a professional chronicler of the past—even the FBI, of which he would run afoul, called him "a noted historian"—Hobsbawm considered himself foremost a writer. His works, such as The Age of Capital (1975), remain widely read today, marked by what Evans justly praises as "readability, analytical penetration and vivid detail." During his long life, Hobsbawm was also a Marxist critic of capitalism, if one who also resisted Stalinism and a fixed party ideology; his opposition to the Vietnam War, for instance, was fierce but nuanced. For all that, as Evans writes with some circumspection, Hobsbawm also enjoyed an active extracurricular life that included a ménage a trois as intellectual as it was physical, a surprise in a book full of them.

Evans clearly admires his subject but does not hesitate to consider the rougher edges—a book that will rightly bring new attention to both writers.

Kirkus Reviews