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66th out of 100 books
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The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991
Dividing the century into the Age of Catastrophe, 1914-1950, the Golden Age, 1950-1973, and the Landslide, 1973-1991, Hobsbawm marshals a vast array of data into a volume of unparalleled inclusiveness, vibrancy, and insight, a work that ranks with his classics The Age of Empire and The Age of Revolution. Includes 32 pages of photos.
Paperback, 672 pages
Published
February 13th 1996
by Vintage
(first published January 1st 1995)
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I remember, a long time ago I read this when it was first published in 1994 - I was a social history student at Swansea Uni - and my lecturer told me this book was a 'departure for Hobsbawm'. I never quite or fully understood what she meant back all those years ago. My second re-read, and I still do not understand what she really meant, although being older and allegedly more wiser, I still fail to fully grasp her meaning. However, what I think she meant was Eric Hobsbawms stance on Soviet Russi...more
Inhalt:
Eric Hobsbawm teilt sein Werk in drei Teile: das Katastrophenzeitalter, das goldene Zeitalter und schließlich der Erdrutsch.
Er erklärt, wie es zum Ersten und zum Zweiten Weltkrieg kam, berichtet vom darauf folgenden Kalten Krieg und auch dem Wirtschaftswunder. Und er zeigt, wieso heute die Länder so sind, wie sie sind.
Meinung:
Jeder kennt die Standardwerke, die es vor allem über den Zweiten Weltkrieg gibt. Oft sind es zähe Sachbücher zu dem Thema, die oftmals zu vi...more
Eric Hobsbawm teilt sein Werk in drei Teile: das Katastrophenzeitalter, das goldene Zeitalter und schließlich der Erdrutsch.
Er erklärt, wie es zum Ersten und zum Zweiten Weltkrieg kam, berichtet vom darauf folgenden Kalten Krieg und auch dem Wirtschaftswunder. Und er zeigt, wieso heute die Länder so sind, wie sie sind.
Meinung:
Jeder kennt die Standardwerke, die es vor allem über den Zweiten Weltkrieg gibt. Oft sind es zähe Sachbücher zu dem Thema, die oftmals zu vi...more
The business of historians, Hobsbawm reminds us, is to remember what others forget, a task carrying much more weight in a world where contemporary experience is persistently present and lacking any organic relation (goodreads, hello?) to the public past of our times.
This book, as proof of the above point, is my first and urgently needed reading of a concise history of the Twentieth Century. Hobsbawm's Maxist position is most obviously apparent not from the balance of his argum...more
This book, as proof of the above point, is my first and urgently needed reading of a concise history of the Twentieth Century. Hobsbawm's Maxist position is most obviously apparent not from the balance of his argum...more
Alan
added it
My favourite historian, and he's not even a military one! Eric Hobsbawm writes extraordinarily well, his historical insight is second to none and his books are always very readable for the layman. Even though he confesses that the 20th century isn't really his area of expertise, The Age of Extremes is a tour de force.
Every session that I read this book, he comes up with some new insight or method of expressing his view that is witty, pertinent and just plain brilliant. I particularl...more
Every session that I read this book, he comes up with some new insight or method of expressing his view that is witty, pertinent and just plain brilliant. I particularl...more
I read this with a ton of hope: I heard this guy was a british national treasure and one of the most famous living historians. But the only thing I took from the book was his (I think accurate) theory that the 20th century was "short" and could be described as the period between the start of WWI and the end of the cold war. The rest of it was pretty forgettable. I think he's one of those historians that only makes sense if you've already spent a lifetime reading history and know the...more
Uma excelente análise do "breve séc. XX". O livro é bom tanto para historiadores quanto leigos interessados no tema. O autor destila eruditismo em uma linguagem completamente acessível e envolvente. Apesar de marxista convicto, neste livro, esse viés fica menos explícito do que em suas outras obras, facilitando o acesso ao texto pelos interessados.
O livro fala das guerras, das lutas sociais, transformações culturais, políticas, futebol, enfim, com segue fazer um apanhado bem ...more
O livro fala das guerras, das lutas sociais, transformações culturais, políticas, futebol, enfim, com segue fazer um apanhado bem ...more
I'm not giving this book a rating for a couple of reasons: I didn't read the whole lot, and it wasn't what I was hoping for.
I was hoping for a book to give me a good overview of the bits of the 20th century I need to teach my yr11 course. It didn't do that; not that much on WW1, and little on the early part of the Cold War, although some interesting and useful comments on both. It said nothing about the suffragette movement, which was disappointing, although I guess it didn't fit into ...more
I was hoping for a book to give me a good overview of the bits of the 20th century I need to teach my yr11 course. It didn't do that; not that much on WW1, and little on the early part of the Cold War, although some interesting and useful comments on both. It said nothing about the suffragette movement, which was disappointing, although I guess it didn't fit into ...more
Born in 1917 and coming of age as a young communist (and a Jewish one at that) in 1930s Germany as Hitler came to power, the British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm - by professional training a historian of the 19th century - here turns his keen analytic eye to the history of his own time. Covering the period of “the short twentieth century”, Age of Extremes explores the period from the start of World War I in 1914 to the sudden and total implosion of the Communist “second world” between 1989 an...more
A good socio-political account of the 20th century, this work is ultimately undermined by the lack of a coherent economic theory. Although the success or failure of economic systems provides the primary method of periodization in the book, Hobsbawm lacks any theoretical device to illustrate why the world economy should ever grow, contract or do anything else, aside from falling back on the notion of Kondratieff waves.
The problem with the Kondratieff wave theory however is that is essentially an...more
The problem with the Kondratieff wave theory however is that is essentially an...more
a few qualms:
1) gross overstatement of the role of the Soviet Union "threat" in the creation of the Western welfare state... goes hand-in-hand with a tendency to see the Left as a historic force embodied by the Soviet Union, rather than the product of internal contradictions within capitalist societies. In other words, the welfare state emerged, in large part, out of concessions wrung out by workers.
2) are we really living in the landside? the past decades hav...more
1) gross overstatement of the role of the Soviet Union "threat" in the creation of the Western welfare state... goes hand-in-hand with a tendency to see the Left as a historic force embodied by the Soviet Union, rather than the product of internal contradictions within capitalist societies. In other words, the welfare state emerged, in large part, out of concessions wrung out by workers.
2) are we really living in the landside? the past decades hav...more
I found this book extremely difficult to read. Hobsbawm was born in Egypt to Viennese parents who spoke English in the home, and his syntax seems to have been permanently ruined by the experience. For example, what are we to make of this sentance? For if divorce, illegitimate, births and the rise of the single-parent (i.e. overwhelmingly the single-mother) household indicated a crisis in the relation between the sexes, the rise of a specific, and extraordinarily powerful youth culture indica...more
I'm not quite done with it yet (150 or so pages left) so take my review with a grain of salt. Mr. Hobsbawm's analysis of the "Short Twentieth Century" does, I think, bear up. At no point in the book does he fail to mention his own biases or does he take a particular side. Mr. Hobsbawm, however, does not pull any punches in his criticism of Western (US) Imperialism up to and through the 80s. The text is well sourced and easily read even if the style is academic and not polemic. One nega...more
Reading this again to contextualise reading on culture from Arnold through Leavis to literary theory with a particular interest in working class culture (looking too at Rose's 'Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes'). As well as the history, maybe more so, I am seeking to bring more sharply into focus my understanding of the refractive processes by which working class history is manufactured.
Hobsbawm is great to read. A certain debunking Attic wit, frequent references to his own...more
Hobsbawm is great to read. A certain debunking Attic wit, frequent references to his own...more
H Wesselius
added it
A well written social history by an old school Labour/Marxist historian. His essays on fascism, third world revolution, communism alone are worth the read. His disdain for Friedman economics as theology is both amusing and correct. He correctly notes the Golden Era to be the result of a compromise between capitalism and labor abandoned in 1973 which created the Crisis Decades of the end of the century. And he notes the irony that the socialist countries integrated themselves to the west at preci...more
Hobsbawm is one of the great historians, and this analysis of the short twentieth century – building on his three volume history of the long nineteenth century – is essential reading for an understanding of the big picture of contemporary history – with its argument that the period c1914 to 1945 was one long European war, that one of the great European social changes of the 20th century was the demise of the peasantry, and other counterintuitive arguments that unsettle the simplicity of the rece...more
the chapters unfurl; the scope of this book is painfully good to explore. even when hobsbawn zeroes in on case studies, he chases down each detail so thoroughly that the causes and effects branch out to include the entire planet. i've only been reading this out of its series of four, but i'm going to do the whole set. too bad i've been falling asleep reading this one. fml
saya barusan ambil kembali buku ini dari rak simpan.
hobsbawm adalah pencerita yang mengesankan: terkesan maksain interpretasinya sendiri tapi cerita yang dibangunnya bisa kita maklumi. itulah pandangan dia. artinya, masih tersisa ruang bagi orang lain untuk menuliskan interpretasinya sendiri.
dia menyebut abad ke-20 sebagai abad yang singkat.
singkat dan karenanya unik. paling tidak, menurut dia, ada 3 hal yang membuat rentang waktu seabad itu begitu unik dibandingkan denga...more
hobsbawm adalah pencerita yang mengesankan: terkesan maksain interpretasinya sendiri tapi cerita yang dibangunnya bisa kita maklumi. itulah pandangan dia. artinya, masih tersisa ruang bagi orang lain untuk menuliskan interpretasinya sendiri.
dia menyebut abad ke-20 sebagai abad yang singkat.
singkat dan karenanya unik. paling tidak, menurut dia, ada 3 hal yang membuat rentang waktu seabad itu begitu unik dibandingkan denga...more
Après un long dix-neuvième siècle en trois volumes, un court XXème en un volume. J'ai bien apprécié le découpage par thématiques plutôt qu'une simple chronologie, mais ces différents chapitres sont de qualité inégale.
A great appendix to Hobsbawm's history of the long nineteenth century (French Revolution to WWI), and a pretty decent place to start for 20th century history I would say. No complaints. And i'm a real complainer.
Erselente libro! (escribo mal a propósito)
Me lo hicieron leer en la U y lo tengo en fotocopias anilladas, porque estaba dentro de los libros para entrar a la Academia Diplomática (pendiente)
Me lo hicieron leer en la U y lo tengo en fotocopias anilladas, porque estaba dentro de los libros para entrar a la Academia Diplomática (pendiente)
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Lysergius
added it
This is one of the best history books ever. Its on a par with Oswald Spengler's "Decline of the West" is its scope and depth of analysis. Sadly it stops before the "new " Millennium - I am curious to see how Hobsbawm will address it . This is a must read if one hopes to have any chance of understanding the pattern 20th century. I was especially impressed by his analysis of the neocon/Chicago economics phenomenon. Gripping!
The first time I read this, I was a fussy new grad student, given to pick on anything. On second reading, this book simply amazes me. Bedtime reading for the kids.
Flashes of brilliance: Hobsbawm is at his best when writing interpretive historical essays on revolution and social/political structures. But he is not as good at writing the kind of narrative that a general "history of the world" such as this requires. So there's a lot of dead space here, along with some really great stuff.
Raza
added it
عصر نهایت ها اریک هابسبام تاریخ جهان 1914 تا 1991 ترجمه حسن مرتضوی
A unique book to help readers figure out the history of the 20th century. Definitely a must-read book.
historoical stuff....quite good analysis with subjective notion of Mr. Hobsbawm
A pretty good social examination of the history of the world since WWI.
Morticia Adams
is currently reading it
I've been reading this book since the beginning of this year and I'm still only half way through it because I need to take frequent breaks. Some of it is very interesting, but generally I'm finding it goes into too much detail about everything, and I'm constantly losing the bigger picture, unlike the author, who seems to be able to synthesise absolutely everything into his vision. I think the trouble is that Professor Hobsbawm is intellectually miles ahead of most other people, but rather char...more
This was fascinating if somewhat a difficult read. My head's swimming, and it's hard to discern overall themes on the first pass, but it's a good, and very interesting approach, to the history of the period from 1914-1994. Hobsbawm attempts to explain the why of the events in this Short Twentieth Century, and -- given his perspective -- succeeds pretty well at it. I'll be reading others in this series, though I'm going to need a break first..
Excellent writing about our recent past. A convulsive period thoroughly analyzed and dissected.
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also published as: Eric Hobsbawm; E.J. Hobsbawm
Eric Hobsbawm, a self-confessed "unrepentant communist" is professor emeritus of economic and social history of the University of London at Birkbeck. He has written many acclaimed historical works, including a trilogy on the nineteenth-century; The Age of Revolution, The Age of Capital, and The Age of Empire and is the author of ...more
More about Eric J. Hobsbawm...
Eric Hobsbawm, a self-confessed "unrepentant communist" is professor emeritus of economic and social history of the University of London at Birkbeck. He has written many acclaimed historical works, including a trilogy on the nineteenth-century; The Age of Revolution, The Age of Capital, and The Age of Empire and is the author of ...more
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