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Eric Hobsbawm (born June 9, 1917) is a British historian and author, once the leading theoretician of the now defunct Communist Party of Great Britain.

One of Hobsbawm's interests is the invention of traditions, national and otherwise. He has spent considerable effort in exposing the artificiality of many "traditions" that nation states use to justify their own existence and importance.

Life

Hobsbawm was born in 1917 as child of Leopold Percy Hobsbawm and Nelly Grün in Alexandria and grew up in Vienna and Berlin. Although they lived in German-speaking countries, his parents continued to speak to him and his two-year younger sister Nancy in English.

His father died in 1929, and he started working as male au pair and English tutor.

He became orphan when his mother died at age 14, and he and Nancy were adopted by his maternal aunt Gretl and paternal uncle Sidney, who married and had a son, also named Eric. They moved to London in 1933.

Hobsbawm married twice, first to Muriel Seaman in 1943 (divorced in 1951) and the second time to Marlene Schwarz. He has an illegitimate son, Joshua, and two children with Marlene: Julia Hobsbawm and Andy Hobsbawm.

He became a Companion of Honour in 1998.

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Politics

He joined the Social Schoolboys in 1931 and the Communist party in 1936. He was member of the Communist Party Historians Group from 1946 to 1956.

In 1956, he spoke out against the Soviet invasion of Hungary and left the British Communist Party to join its Italian equivalent.

He worked with the magazine Marxism Today during the 1980s and supported Neil Kinnock's modernisation of the British Labour Party.

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Academic life

He was educated at Prinz Heinrich Gymnasium, St Marylebone Grammar School and King's College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a Ph.D. in history on the Fabian Society. During World War II, he served in the Royal Engineers and the Royal Army Educational Corps. In 1947, he became a lecturer in history at Birkbeck College, University of London. He was a visiting professor at Stanford in the 1960s. In 1970, he was appointed professor, and in 1978 he was made a Fellow of the British Academy.

He retired in 1982, but stayed as visiting professor some months a year at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan until 1997. He speaks German, French, Spanish and Italian, and reads Dutch, Portuguese and Catalan.

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Works

Hobsbawm has written extensively on a broad and diverse selection of subjects during the course of his career as one of Britain's most cosmopolitan and internationally renowned historians. As a Marxist historiographer he has focused on in-depth analysis of the 'dual revolution' (the political French revolution and the industrial British revolution) and how their combined effect lies behind the predominant trend towards liberal capitalism today. Another re-occurring theme in his work has been banditry, a phenomenon that Hobsbawm has tried to place within the confines of relevant societal and historical context, and thus countering the traditional view of it being a spontaneous and unpredictable form of primitive rebellion. Outside of academic historical writing, Hobsbawm has written (under the pseudonym Francis Newton--taken from the name of Billie Holiday's Communist trumpet player) for the New Statesman as a jazz critic and has numerous essays published in various intellectual journals, dealing with anything from barbarity in the modern age to the troubles of labour movements and the conflict between anarchism and communism.

His most recent publication was the autobiography, Interesting Times.

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Controversy

Hobsbawm has attracted criticism for his seemingly unrepentant continued support for Communism. In a now notorious interview with British cultural critic Michael Ignatieff on British television, he responded to the question of whether 20 million deaths would have been justified if the proposed Communist utopia had been created as a consequence by saying "yes".

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Publication list

He has written (among other things) the following books:

Labour's Turning Point
Primitive Rebels
The Age of Revolution
Labouring Men
Industry and Empire
Bandits
Captain Swing (with George Rude)
Revolutionaries
The Age of Capital, 1848-1875
Workers
The Age of Empire
Nations and Nationalism since 1780
The Jazz Scene
Age of Extremes
On History
Uncommon People
Interesting Times (autobiography)
On the Edge of the New Century

He has edited the following:

The Invention of Tradition (With Terrence Ranger)

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Reference

Campbell, J. "Towards the Great Decision: Review of the The Age of Empire" page 153 from Times Literary Supplement, Volume 4428, February 12, 1988.
Cronin, J. "Creating a Marxist Historiography: the Contribution of Hobsbawm" pages 87-109 from Radical History Review, Volume 19, 1979.
Genovese, Eugene "The Squandered Century: Review of The Age of Extremes" pages 38-43 from The New Republic, Volume 212, April 17, 1995.
Hampson, N. "All for the Better? Review of Echoes of the Marseillaise" page 637 from Times Literary Supplement, Volume 4550, June 15, 1990.
Judt, Tony "Downhill All the Way: Review of The Age of Extremes" pages 20-25 from New York Review of Books, May 25, 1995, Volume 49, Issue # 9.
Landes, David "The Ubiquitous Bourgeoisie: Review of The Age of Capital" pages 662-664 from Times Literary Supplement, Volume 3873, June 4, 1976.
McKibblin, R. "Capitalism out of Control: Review of The Age of Extremes" pages 406 from Times Literary Supplement, Volume 4778, October 28, 1994.
Mingay, G.E. "Review of Captain Swing" page 810 from English Historical Review, Volume 85 (337), 1970.
Samuel, R. and Stedman Jones, Garth (editors) Culture, Ideology and Politics: Essays for Eric Hobsbawm, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982.
Seton-Watson, H. "Manufactured Mythologies: Review of The Invention of Tradition" page 1270 from Times Literary Supplement, Volume 4207, November 18, 1983.
Smith, P. "No Vulgar Marxist: Review of On History" page 31 from Times Literary Supplement, Volume 4917, June 27, 1997.
Thane, P.; Crossick, G. & Floud, R. (editors) The Power of the Past: Essays for Eric Hobsbawm, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
Thane, P. & Lunbeck, E. "Interview with Eric Hobsbawm" pages 29-46 from Visions of History, edited by H. Abelove; B. Blackmar; P. Dimock & J. Schneer, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983.
Weber, Eugen "What Rough Beast?" pages 285-298 from Critical Review, Volume 10, Issue # 2, 1996.
Wrigley, Chris "Eric Hobsbawm: an Appreciation" page 2 from Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, Volume 38, Issue #1, 1984.

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External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hobsbawm"