Eric Hobsbawm, 1917-2012

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's been announced that Eric Hobsbawm, the utterly and absolutely eminent Marxist historian, has died at the age of 95. He was best known for his four books on the Long Nineteenth Century and Short Twentieth Century (which if you haven't read yet, you should), but published widely over a very productive career. His works are worth reading even when (as over the concept of a clearly definable 'Labour Aristocracy') he was wrong. He was also - in a deeply surreal twist for a lifelong Communist - an influential political analyst in the 1980s, firmly on the side of Neil Kinnock's project to (as both saw it) knock some sense back into the Labour Party. His autobiography - in many respects an attempt to come to terms with some of the more problematic contradictions in his life - is also worth reading. A case can be made that he was the greatest historian to write in the English language, and that even if he wasn't, he was certainly one of the most influential.

Grauniad obit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/oct/01/eric-hobsbawm
BBC obit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13980324

[Tetro Kornbluth]

*Ahem*

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=160488.msg3445168#new

Either way, I wasn't up to making a long post like yours, so I think we should merge the threads....

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I don't know; he was a public figure as well as a historian, so there's a degree of logic in having two threads.

[The Mikado]

What?  No!   

I've always thought it was Hobsbawm that was being parodied in Tom Stoppard's play Rock and Roll, which features an elderly British academic who keeps proclaiming that he's exactly as old as the Russian Revolution.

[Insula Dei]

What can one say,... RIP Eric Hobsbawm?

[The Mikado]

The first chapter of Nations and Nationalism Since 1780 might be the best thing I've ever read.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Reading this paragraph in Age of Extremes basically convinced me (years ago) to attempt to become some sort of pastiche of a historian:

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[Filuwaúrdjan]

And here's another wonderful paragraph, this time from the introduction to Age of Capital:

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[Јas]

Remembering Dad - Julia Hobsbawm, Financial Times

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Wonderful, very nice *pauses to wipe his eyes*.