Age of Revolution 1848

by Eric Hobsbawm

by
Eric Hobsbawm

book data

203 ratings, 4.04 average rating, 14 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		29%
4		47%
3		20%
2		1%
1		0%

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published

by Penguin Putnam~mass (first published 1962)

details

Paperback

isbn

0451617401 (isbn13: 9780451617408)

description

This magisterial volume follows the death of ancient traditions, the triumph of new classes, and the emergence of new technologies, sciences, and ideo…more

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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 376)

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Aug 03, 2008

Tim rated it:

(review of isbn 0679772537)

The most Eurocentric and straightforwardly Marxist of the series--hey, it was written in the sixties, those were the times--The Age of Revolution is still a monument to Hobsbawm's erudition. And while whenever he talked about subjects I actually knew about I found his discussion slightly off (it took me a while, for instance, to figure out that he meant "bible punchers" to be a synonym for "bible thumpers") the scope of the books staggers. The introduction contains an uninten...more

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Jul 26, 2009

Shane Avery rated it:

(review of isbn 0679772537)

bookshelves: non-fiction

Read in August, 2009

E.J. Hobsbawm argues that the French Revolution and the British Industrial Revolution transformed the world in unprecedented ways. This “Dual Revolution,” argues Hobsbawm, established the parameters for European hegemony. The socio-economic structure of Europe in 1848 looked completely different from that of 1789. Although they followed different trajectories, bourgeois liberalism lay at the heart of both.

To begin with, Britain was the first country in the world to industrial...more E.J. Hobsbawm argues that the French Revolution and the British Industrial Revolution transformed the world in unprecedented ways. This “Dual Revolution,” argues Hobsbawm, established the parameters for European hegemony. The socio-economic structure of Europe in 1848 looked completely different from that of 1789. Although they followed different trajectories, bourgeois liberalism lay at the heart of both.

To begin with, Britain was the first country in the world to industrialize, in part because its political system was already geared to the ideals of economic expansion and private profit. Britain’s economy changed in fundamental ways as it gradually moved away from peasant agrarianism: this entailed the abolition of lands held in common (notably through Enclosure Acts), the rise of a non-agrarian and non-skilled workforce, and explosive urbanization. By the time Britain’s economy achieved “self-sustained growth” (45) at some point during the 1780s, its economy was already fully committed to the world-market. This marks the first time in world history that a nation’s export market triumphed over its domestic market. (53) The explosion of capital, made possible by the monumental growth of the cotton industry, in turn allowed for the astronomic expansion of iron, steal, coal, and railways. The transition to industrial capitalism was exceptionally hard on “the labouring poor,” inasmuch as it completely transformed their traditional cosmology.

For its part, the French Revolution provided the world with a vocabulary of bourgeois liberalism. Hobsbawm understands the Revolution as a class struggle between --and among-- aristocrats, the middle classes, and the peasants. It would be anachronistic, perhaps, given the absence of class consciousness, to speak of a bourgeoisie and proletariat in 1789. It is clear, however, that the different stages of the French Revolution reflect the impending struggle between liberalism and socialism. What began as the aristocratic attempt to recapture the state quickly evolved into the attempt by the middle classes to create “a secular state with civil liberties and guarantees for private enterprise, and [a:] government by tax-payers and property-owners.” (81) The most radical years of the Revolution (1792-94), conducted by the sans-culottes and Jacobins, scared the bourgeoisie and helped solidify middle-class interests. From Thermidor forward, we can understand French history in terms of maintaining a balance between the dangers of radicalism and returning to the extremes of the old regime. Napoleon’s military projects contributed to the institutionalization of bourgeois ideals -- in Marxist terms, he created a bourgeois superstructure, the political geography of the “characteristic modern state” (113) with its concomitants international financing and long-term investment in the capital goods industries.

Hobsbawm also surveys the effects the Dual Revolution had on: the rise of nationalism; the commodification of land; the abolition of social privileges; the rise the proletariat as a political entity; religious and secular ideologies; science; and the arts. Tying all these things together, it seems, is the dialectical idea that the triumph of bourgeois liberalism also contained the seeds of its subversion. The rationalism of the enlightenment, and its belief in the progress of civilization, did not find its ultimate expression in the theories of Adam Smith, who believed that “the exchange of equivalents in the market somehow assured social justice.” (287) Recognizing the fundamental flaws within capitalism, utopian socialists offered alternative visions. Owen, Saint Simon, and Engels all embraced the idea that man is a communal being, not a commodity whose utility can be measured in the market place. The social experiments of Owen and Fourier reflect not so much the repudiation of industrial development, as they do to a commitment to a more humanitarian form of economic development. Thus “the period of the dual revolution saw both the triumph and the most elaborate formulation of the middle-class liberal and petty bourgeois radical ideologies, and their disintegration under the impact of the states and societies they had themselves set out to create . . .” (298)
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Jan 09, 2008

Derrick rated it:

(review of isbn 0679772537)

Read in April, 2008

As a product of the public education system, this book unquestionably cleaned my clock.
The preconditions of the modern world are laid out, configured, and reconfigured with such precision, clarity, and ocassional flare that I could actually feel my brain humming like the filament in the Bright Idea Bulb.
Thank you, Mr. Hobsbawm

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Apr 20, 2009

Paul rated it:

(review of isbn 0349104840)

bookshelves: non-fiction

Read in April, 2009

I started this 5 years ago and got bored. I was a recent college graduate and dumber. This time, I finished it in a week and enjoyed it. Hobsbawm gives a convincing illustration of how the French and Industrial Revolutions impacted everything and how politics and the economy developed as a result.
I found his explanations about Britain's economic domination most interesting.
You should know a little about European history before reading this, and if you don't I order you...more

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Feb 09, 2009

Andrew rated it:

(review of other edition)

Read in April, 2009

"A common fate and a common ideal bound these expatriates and travellers together. Most of them faced the same problems of poverty and police surveillance, of illegal correspondence, espionage, and the ubiquitous agent-provocateur. Like fascism in the 1930s, absolutism in the 1830s and 1840s bound its common enemies together. Then as a century later communism, which purported to explain and provide solutions for the social crisis of the world, attracted the militant and the mere intellec...more

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Aug 01, 2008

D.S. Mattison rated it:

(review of isbn 0679772537)

Read in August, 2008

recommended to D.S. by: Derrick
recommends it for: Those in need of a history lesson

I had first intended to read this book in the Spring. Derrick and I (and I think a few others) were going to read it at the same time and then have meetings to discuss its content. At the time I was far too enraptured in The Sorrows of Young Werther and could only muster a paragraph or two of Hobsbawm per sitting. Something switched off or on in my brain a few weeks ago (perhaps my yearning for sensational dire romanticism was quenched and my taste for historical analysis was revived), which mad...more I had first intended to read this book in the Spring. Derrick and I (and I think a few others) were going to read it at the same time and then have meetings to discuss its content. At the time I was far too enraptured in The Sorrows of Young Werther and could only muster a paragraph or two of Hobsbawm per sitting. Something switched off or on in my brain a few weeks ago (perhaps my yearning for sensational dire romanticism was quenched and my taste for historical analysis was revived), which made me plow through the rest of this book like a fat kid at the lunch line. As I am not an historian, or rather do not have the time to stew over the primary sources from this period, I am quite thankful to Mr. Hobsbawm for doing the leg work for me, even if through a Marxist lens. In that vein, I find this lens refreshing because it is not only responsible history writing (i.e. openly rather than sneakily biased) but also serves to educate us about the history and the conditions that led Karl Marx to his conclusions. No course in dialectic materialism will give you the tools to understanding Marx better than this 300 page historical tour de force. The framework of the dual revolution (French and Industrial) serves as a perfect source from which to explain all of the political and economic conditions and upheavals throughout this period. It also serves to arm us with a better grasp on our own political vocabulary (liberal, conservative, bourgeoisie, radical, left, right, socialist, capitalist, etc.). Further highlights are the chapters on religious and secular ideology, art, and science. Synchronicity with my own studies abound - Hobsbawm frequently refers to Goethe (who of course was a major literary figure during this time). The city of Manchester figures in largely as the birthplace of industry and therefore one of the most depressing, ugly, dark, and dank cities in the western world (which makes the music boom there all the more interesting and complex). I always enjoy seeing the ways in which so many seemingly disparate works and movements connect. I can foresee myself reading his other books regarding the pre and proceeding historical epochs. (less)

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Dec 29, 2009

Amir rated it:

(review of isbn 0679772537)

bookshelves: currently-reading

Read in January, 2010

این کتاب ما را با واقعیت تاریخ و استحاله ی دول از فئودالی به سرمایه داری و روند منفعت طلبانه ی جنگ ها و تاریخ استعمار گری دول مختلف در ازمنه.
عصر انقلاب ، عصر سرمایه ، عصر امپراطوری و عصر نهایت ها دوره ی چهار جلدی موثری است که توسط آقای هابز بام تألیف شده و به حق می توان گفت که �...more

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Jun 19, 2009

Dick Pountain rated it:

(review of isbn 0679772537)

If you want to understand how we got to where we are now, you need to read all three volumes of Hobsbawm's great work.

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Sep 18, 2009

Lazarus P Badpenny Esq rated it:

(review of isbn 0349104840)

bookshelves: 2-kewl-4-skewl, 2009, england, europa, france, french-revolution, hopeless-romantics, ideas, pre-twentieth-century, the-proper-study-of-mankind, tyranny

Read in October, 2009

A brisk canter through the fifty year period that shunted in the railway age of slum tenements and industrial over-production. The narrative is not too overburdened with facts (each chapter is supported by footnotes), just the odd reassuring stylistic idiosyncrasy.

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3 comments

Oct 06, 2007

Sudi rated it:

(review of isbn 0679772537)

Read in June, 2004

Dua revolusi besar dalam dunia, terjadi berbarengan: Revolusi Industri dan Revolusi Perancis. Buku ini memaparkan hingga ke detil-detilnya, perkembangan industri dan teknologi, sosial-politik, ekonomi, yang ditutup dengan bangkitnya kekuatan baru, revolusi baru kelas pekerja, dengan terbitnya Manifesto Komunis.

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