{"id":9134,"date":"2012-10-01T07:36:49","date_gmt":"2012-10-01T11:36:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=9134"},"modified":"2012-10-01T07:36:49","modified_gmt":"2012-10-01T11:36:49","slug":"eric-hobsbawm-1917-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/eric-hobsbawm-1917-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Guardian obit is here<\/a>. I’ll reread some pages from The Age of Extremes<\/em><\/a> in his honor today. Via Spartacus Educational<\/a>, here is a short bio of the great historian:<\/p>\n

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Eric Hobsbawm, the son of a\u00a0Jewish<\/a>\u00a0tradesman, was born in\u00a0Alexandria<\/a>,\u00a0Egypt<\/a>, on 9th June, 1917. After the\u00a0First World War<\/a>\u00a0ended his parents moved to\u00a0Austria<\/a>. By the time he was thirteen, both his parents had died. He went to live with his aunt in\u00a0Berlin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When\u00a0Adolf Hitler<\/a>\u00a0gained power in 1933, what was left of Hobsbawn’s family moved to\u00a0London<\/a>. He later recalled: “In Germany there wasn’t any alternative left. Liberalism was failing. If I’d been German and not a Jew, I could see I might have become a Nazi, a German nationalist. I could see how they’d become passionate about saving the nation. It was a time when you didn’t believe there was a future unless the world was fundamentally transformed.”<\/p>\n

Hobsbawn did well in his English school and he won a scholarship to study history at\u00a0King’s College<\/a>,\u00a0Cambridge<\/a>. While a student joined the\u00a0Communist Party of Great Britain<\/a>. He also edited the student weekly, Granta.<\/p>\n

On the outbreak of the\u00a0Second World War<\/a>\u00a0Hobsbawn joined theBritish Army<\/a>. Despite speaking German, French, Spanish and Italian fluently he was turned down for intelligence work. He served with the\u00a0Royal Engineers<\/a>\u00a0and later with the Educational Corps.<\/p>\n

After the war Hobsbawm returned to\u00a0Cambridge University<\/a>\u00a0where he completed a PhD on the\u00a0Fabian Society<\/a>. In 1947 he became a lecturer at\u00a0Birkbeck College<\/a>. Hobsbawn joined\u00a0E. P. Thompson<\/a>,Christopher Hill<\/a>,\u00a0Rodney Hilton<\/a>,\u00a0A. L. Morton<\/a>,\u00a0Raphael Samuel<\/a>,George Rud\u00e9<\/a>,\u00a0John Saville<\/a>,\u00a0Dorothy Thompson<\/a>,\u00a0Edmund Dell<\/a>,Victor Kiernan<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Maurice Dobb<\/a>\u00a0in forming the\u00a0Communist Party Historians’ Group<\/a>. In 1952 members of the group founded the journal,\u00a0Past and Present<\/a><\/em>. Over the next few years the journal pioneered the study of working-class history.<\/p>\n

John Saville<\/a>\u00a0later wrote: “The Historian’s Group had a considerable long-term influence upon most of its members. It was an interesting moment in time, this coming together of such a lively assembly of young intellectuals, and their influence upon the analysis of certain periods and subjects of British history was to be far-reaching.”<\/p>\n

Hobsbawm’s first book,Primitive Rebels<\/a><\/em>, was published in 1959. This was followed by\u00a0The Age of Revolution<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1962),\u00a0Labouring Men<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1964),\u00a0Industry and Empire<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1968),\u00a0Bandits<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1969). In 1969 Hobsbawn co-wrote\u00a0Captain Swing<\/a><\/em>\u00a0with\u00a0George Rud\u00e9<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hobsbawm, unlike most of his friends, remained a member of theCommunist Party of Great Britain<\/a>. However, he did protest against the Soviet invasion of\u00a0Hungary<\/a>\u00a0in 1956 andCzechoslovakia<\/a>\u00a0in 1968. In 1970 he became professor of history at\u00a0Birkbeck College<\/a>, a post he held for twelve years.<\/p>\n

Other books by Hobsbawn include\u00a0Revolutionaries<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1973),\u00a0The Age of Capital<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1975),\u00a0History of Marxism<\/a><\/em><\/span>\u00a0(1978),\u00a0Workers<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1984),The Age of Empire<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1987),\u00a0Nations and Nationalism<\/a><\/em><\/span>\u00a0(1990),\u00a0The Age of Extremes<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1994),\u00a0On History<\/a><\/em><\/span>\u00a0(1997),\u00a0Uncommon People<\/a><\/em>(1998),\u00a0The New Century<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1999),\u00a0Interesting Times<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(2002) andGlobalisation, Democracy and Terrorism<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(2008).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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 <\/p>\n

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The Guardian obit is here. I’ll reread some pages from The Age of Extremes in his honor today. Via Spartacus Educational, here is a short bio of the great historian: Eric Hobsbawm, the son...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[933,55,76,1],"tags":[934],"class_list":["post-9134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-intellectuals","category-obituaries","category-uncategorized","tag-eric-hobsbawm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9134"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9141,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9134\/revisions\/9141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}