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Introduction to a 1995 Conversation with Eric Hobsbawm

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2013

Michael Hanagan  and
Behrooz Moazami
Michael Hanagan
Affiliation:
Vassar College
Behrooz Moazami
Affiliation:
Loyola University New Orleans
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Extract

Eric Hobsbawm, who died on October 1, 2012, was one of a handful of extraordinary labor historians who emerged from the British Communist Party Historians' Group in the 1940s and 1950s. Today he is widely acknowledged as one of the great historians of our era. His influence is truly international. For a long time, a significant limitation on the extent of his renown was the USSR where, during the era of “actually-existing socialism,” his works were never translated or published. This was ironic since he was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) from 1936 until its dissolution in 1991.

Type
Eric Hobsbawm: In Memoriam
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 83: Strikes and Social Conflicts , Spring 2013 , pp. 5 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 2013 

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References

NOTES

1. Shortly after the interview was transcribed, it was edited and approved by Eric Hobsbawm.

2. Hobsbawm, Eric, “The General Crisis of the European Economy in the 17th Century,” Past & Present 5 (1954): 33–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar and “The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century,” Past and Present 6 (1954): 44–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the modern state of the debate, see Parker, Geoffrey and Smith, Lesley M., The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century, 2nd edition (New York, 1987).Google Scholar

3. Hobsbawm, Eric, “The British Standard of Living Debate, 1790–1850,” Economic History Review 10 (1957): 46–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. Hobsbawn, Eric, Bandits (New York, 1969)Google Scholar, 30.

5. Hobsbawm, Eric and Rudé, Georges, Captain Swing: A Social History of the Great English Agricultural Uprising of 1830 (New York, 1968)Google Scholar, 15.

6. Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movements in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Manchester, 1959)Google Scholar; Hobsbawm, Eric and Rudé, Georges, Captain Swing (New York, 1968)Google Scholar.

7. For some critiques of Hobsbawm's approach by social and economic historians and anthropologists, see Blok, Anton, The Mafia of a Sicilian Village, 1860–1960: A Study of Violent Peasant Entrepreneurs (New York, 1975)Google Scholar and Mintz, Jerome R., The Anarchists of Casas Viejas (Bloomington, 1994)Google Scholar.

8. Hobsbawm, Eric, The Age of Revolution, 1789–1848 (London, 1962)Google Scholar; The Age of Capital, 1848–1875 (London, 1975)Google Scholar; The Age of Empire, 1875–1914 (London, 1987)Google Scholar; The Age of Extremes, 1914–1991 (New York, 1995)Google Scholar, 178.

9. Hobsbawm, Eric ed., Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations: Karl Marx (New York, 1964)Google Scholar; Marx, Karl, Grundrisse (New York, 1968)Google Scholar.

10. Forgacs, David, ed., The Antonio Gramsci Reader Selected Writings, 1916–1935 (New York, 1988)Google Scholar.

11. Cohen, G. A., Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence (Princeton, 1978)Google Scholar.

12. Eric Hobsbawm, “Interview,” 7.

13. Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes, 178.

14. See the accompanying interview.

15. Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution.

16. Hobsbawm, Eric, Interesting Times: A Twentieth Century Life (New York, 2002)Google Scholar, 291.

17. Hobsbawm, Eric, “From Social History to the History of Society,” Daedalus 100 (1971): 20–45Google Scholar; and Hobsbawm, Eric, “Looking Back Half a Century,” in Histories of Labour: National and International Perspectives, eds. Allen, Joan, Campbell, Alan, and Mcllroy, John (London, 2010), 1–5Google Scholar, 5.

18. Industry and Empire: From 1750 to the Present Day (London, 1968)Google Scholar; His three volumes, The Age of Revolution: 1789–1848, The Age of Capital: 1848–1875, and The Age of Empire: 1875–1914) along with its sequel, The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991.

19. Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital, 2.

20. Ibid., 12.

21. Ibid., 340.

22. Hobsbawm, Interesting Times, 86.

23. Bobbio, Norbert, Which Socialism? Marxism, Socialism and Democracy (Minneapolis, 1987)Google Scholar.

24. Hobsbawm, Eric, “The Forward March of Labour Halted,” in The Foreign March of Labour Halted, ed. Hobsbawm, Eric, (London, 1978)Google Scholar, 1.

25. Hobsbalm, Eric, Politics of a Rational Left (New York, 1989)Google Scholar, 165.

26. Hobsbawm, Interesting Times, 276.

27. Eric Hobsbawm, “Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in Quotes,” The Guardian, October 1, 2012.

28. Hobsbawm, Eric, “The Prospects for Democracy,” in Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism, Hobsbawm, Eric, ed. (New York, 2007), 95–114Google Scholar, 113.

29. Eric Hobsbawm and Jacques Attalli, “The New Globalisation Guru?” The New Statesman, September 27, 2010.