In these essays, about a quarter of them previously
unpublished, Eric Hobsbawm reflects upon the theory, practice and
development of history and its relevance to the modern world. These
wide-ranging papers reflect Professor Hobsbawm''s lifelong concern
with the relations between past, present and future. They deal,
among many other subjects, with the problems of writing history,
its abuses and the historian''s responsibilities; with the history
of society and ''history from below''; with Marx and current
historical trends or fashions; with Europe, the Russian Revolution
and the descent into a world-wide barbarism that, increasing for
most of the twentieth century, threatens to destroy the
civilisation we have inherited from the European Enlightenment of
the eighteenth century. These essays reveal a passionate belief in
the importance of studying history, as well as displaying the
incisive analysis, the breadth of allusion and the distinctive
viewpoint for which this great historian is justly famous.
關於作者:
Eric Hobsbawm was born in Alexandria in 1917 and educated in
Vienna, Berlin, London and Cambridge. A Fellow of the British
Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, with
honorary degrees from universities in several countries. He is the
well-known author of AGE OF REVOLUTION 1789-1848, THE AGE OF
CAPITAL 1848-1875 etc