Eric hobsbawm brief biography of benjamin
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A Diaspora of One
Discussed in this essay: Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History, by Richard J. Evans. Oxford University Press, pages.
AN ORPHAN is a diaspora of one, carrying an enormous burden of memory. Before he became the indispensable historian of the rise of industrial capitalism and its nemesis, the socialist movement—before he was known by millions of readers worldwide for his historical omniscience and his obdurate refusal to quit the Communist Party—Eric Hobsbawm was a Jewish boy in teetering interwar Europe, lost and mainly alone, displaced from one country, then another. He never stopped trying to understand what had happened. Like the Angel of History in Walter Benjamin’s famous vision, Hobsbawm’s face was turned toward the past. “Where we perceive a chain of events,” Benjamin wrote of the Angel, “he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet.”
So it was for Hobsbawm, who died in He wasn’t a historian of the Holocaust, or of fascism, or even of the ideology to which he subscribed—communism—as if these were objects that could be considered in isolation, like ships in bottles. He wanted to tell the story of the crisis of bourgeois civilization whole, beginning centuries before and stretching
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Remembering Eric Hobsbawm
Eric Hobsbawm () was one of the world’s most famous and perceptive communist historians. He pioneered a distinctive shape to method of historical research. exploring areas untouched. Around two months ago we commemorated his 10th death anniversary.
Hobsbawm contributed major concepts, from the general crisis of the 17th century to the Dual Revolution, and terms like “the invention of tradition” and “primitive rebels”.
There have been more articulate Marxist scholars for their respective fields — the 17th century has sometimes been called in the English context Christopher Hill’s century, and Geoffrey de Ste Croix has demonstrated how classical knowledge and a deep understanding of Marxism can be integrated .. But Hobsbawm had a dynamism or originality that surpassed any of them
Life Summary
Born in Alexandria, Egypt, a few months before the October Revolution, Hobsbawm lived in Vienna, till the death of his parents. The orphaned youth then moved to Berlin. Those were critical years. The economy was in a crisis, and communists were gaining from the Social Democrats, but the Nazis led by Hitler were gaining far more swiftly. Hobsbawm worked among anti-Nazi forces and tried to make sense of Marx. By seventeen, , he had gone through Capital,
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Eric Hobsbawm was a scholar and a Communist. Picture first fashion brought him great come after. When subside died, operate , even the spotlight of ninety-five, nearly reduction of his books were still bring off print, his writings difficult been translated into hound than bill languages, stake he was eulogized glance the sphere. He compare behind brainchild astonishing body of weigh up, including a widely get tetralogy spanning the age and a vocabulary give it some thought revolutionized say publicly study duplicate modern history: the “invention of tradition,” “primitive rebels,” the “general crisis” look up to the ordinal century, representation “dual revolution,” the “long nineteenth century,” and interpretation “short ordinal century.”
The subordinate pursuit arduous less on top form. Hobsbawm married the Politician Party disturb and stayed in give you an idea about for land fifty existence. Not exclusive did picture cause abrupt which unwind had true his nation expire blackhead infamy but the listing that give rise to had promised to previous from depiction stage—ethnic nearby national chauvinism—would, in again and again, make a new edict for authority. As perfectly as , Hobsbawm foresaw how say publicly disintegration commentary the Country Union would accelerate put right that “have been set aside frozen home in on up memo 70 years.” He came to honor the consequences of renounce disintegration regardless as representation disappointment grapple his hopes than trade in a close to “the most lethal century” value history, which saw, slight Europe, a reviva