Customer Reviews

Age of Revolution

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The sign of a well-written and well-argued book is that it is one that challenges your world view by making you re-think and review your position. It doesn't matter that it convinces you, it matters that it makes you sharpen your thought process. The Age of Revolution does this well.

Hobsbawm's Age of Revolution (and his entire "Age of..." series) sees western history in marxian terms, a distinctly non-American approach. I must admit that I have a special affinity for Age of Revolution. I first read it in the early 80's as an undergraduate in history and while it didn't make me anywhere near a marxist it was the first to allow me to see history from a different angle than conventional/traditional histories. I've been a reader of Hobsbawm ever since, disagreeing- often- with his analysis, but always respecting his perspective.

Age of Revolutions deals with the decisive era that began with the French Revolution and ends with the revolutions of 1848 (and includes of course the Industrial Revolution). Hobsbawm writes as from a generalist perspective for the general reader of history (for non-historian's at least some background in Western European history is recommended before tackling this book).

A classic writing of European history.

Though it was originally published in 1962, Eric Hobsbawm's The Age of Revolution still can be considered one of the most astute and authoritative analyses of the French and Industrial Revolutions. Through his recognition that these two revolutions were linked through various historical circumstances Hobsbawm illuminates the period that began with the rise of Jacobinism and ended with the failure of the 1848 uprisings. Unfortunately, Hobsbawm's work in not accesible to the novice historian. The reader must possess at least a casual knowledge of the French and Industrial Revolutions to adequetely comprehend Hobsbawm's conclusions.

Additionally, some readers might rebuke Hobsbawm for his at times awkward phrasing. Of course, most historians struggle severely with writing as a result of the monumental difficulties inherent in the endeavor of trying to record through language the essence of a historical period. Consequently, Hobsbawm should be forgiven if a few of his sentences require re-reading.

Irrespective of the simply technical, however, the Age of Revolution suggests why Hobsbawm is considered to be one of the great modern historians. Certainly, some readers are critical of Hobsbawm for his Marxist tendancies, but these crtics generally are serving their instinctual prejudices rather than maintaining an adherence to objective reasoning. Hobsbawm possesses a mind that shuns simple conclusions in favor of complex answers that raise even more complex questions.

In The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848, Eric Hobsbawm examines sixty pivotal years beginning with the construction of the first factory system in Lancashire and the French Revolution in 1789 and concluding with the publication of the Communist Manifesto in 1848. According to Hobsbawm, the period was marked by two watershed events, the twin upheavals of the British Industrial Revolution and the contemporaneous French Revolution. Described as "twin craters of a larger, regional volcano," Hobsbawm stresses the far-reaching societal impact of these revolutions beyond the borders of the two rival nations. The introduction of a bourgeois middle class within a capitalist industrial reorganization of social relations formed what Hobsbawm identifies as "the greatest transformation in human history" since Mesopotamia. Giving rise to explosive new capital and social opportunities, the volcano unleashed unforeseen destabilizing forces capable of collapsing the top-heavy liberal, capitalist expansion. According to Hobsbawm, the publication of the Communist Manifesto marked the beginning of a worldwide social critique and chain reaction, testifying to the pervasive influence, at once promising and tragic, of the dual revolution in Britain and France.
Hobsbawm launches his discussion by first describing the agrarian/feudal world of 1780 and the preconditions that fostered the Industrial and French Revolutions. Britain was free of a feudal monarch, and private enterprise had been accepted in that nation for more than a century. Britain also had the natural resources and colonial empire necessary to provide the raw materials, primarily coal and cotton, to fuel a rapid industrial expansion. In France, the bourgeoisie formed an ideological consensus ripe for revolution, fueled by the classical liberal discourse of political philosophers and legal theorists who openly critiqued an abusive, debt-laden aristocracy. Whereas the Industrial Revolution fundamentally altered the conditions of labor, giving rise to a new social order, the French Revolution exposed the vulnerability of the ancien regime and provided the paradigmatic shift supporting the rise of the middle class. In the remainder of his discussion, Hobsbawm unravels the far-reaching significance of the two revolutions, demonstrating the infusion of such fundamental concepts as private property, market economy, upward mobility, secularization, scientific invention, and freedom of expression. However, he also underscores the adverse side effects of the new order. Hobsbawm describes the inherent weaknesses of capitalist society as reflected in the literary Romanticism of the era; the bourgeois world was void of social connection, having divorced man from his unity with nature, and exchanged personal worth for callous exchange value. 1789 ushered in an age of superlatives, but the discontent of the laboring masses and rumblings of counter-revolution were already set to explode by 1848.
Rather than trace the development of capitalism and liberalism, Hobsbawm assumes their formative pre-existence and aims to uncover their manifestation within two major historical events. The advantage of this method is his ability to identify the origins of bourgeois society within a particular period of rapid social change and focus the argument toward the fallout of these revolutionary processes. Although he supports his analysis of the social consequences of the revolutions referencing a diverse range of topics, including religion, scientific innovation and the arts, he refrains from presenting a systematic history of the period. In the process, his argument tends to drift into a reflection of loosely connected curiosities, dampening the force of his message. Despite this, Hobsbawm's contribution as a conceptual framework is a valuable tool for understanding the significance of 1749 as well as the events following 1848.

(4.5 stars)
In his preface, Hobsbawn explains: "The object of this book is not detailed narrative, but interpretation and what the French call haute vulgarisation. Its ideal reader is that theoretical construct, the intelligent and educated citizen, who is not merely curious about the past, but wishes to understand how and why the world has come to be what it is today and whither it is going. Hence it would be pedantic and uncalled-for to load the text with as heavy an apparatus of scholarship as it ought to carry for a more learned public. My notes therefore refer almost entirely to the sources of actual quotations and figures, or in some cases to the authority for statements which are particularly controversial or surprising."

I quote Hobswan's preface in full because it seems to capture the great strengths and modest weaknesses of this book. First, the prose. It can be cumbersome, particularly when bearing the weight of unfamiliar names, places and "isms." But the complexity is necessary in my opinion. The author is trying to stuff sweeping movements, grand figures of history, and the captial "M" Modern revolution into 300 pages of declarative sentences without abridging the truth. That's hard work. And as readers, we are asked to do some hard work as well.

But that brings up the great strength of Hobswan's work. He succeeds. Ideas like "Nationalism" and "Industrialism" become understandable in twenty pages or less. You see how the railroads were born and how they fueled speculation. How we all used to live in the country, isolated, living and dying in the same county, perhaps never to receive more than a letter (there were no newspapers, no mass media of any type) from the outside world. Universities, cities, labor unions, roads, socialism - the development of all of these comes into much clearer focus under the direction of Hobswans' pen. And that is why I picked up the book as an "intelligent and educated citizen" for the first time, to understand the origins of these things, my world's past, more clearly.

As for Hobswan's Marxist background, I did not notice either time I read the book. In fact, without Amazon I would have never known. It played no role in my rating down one-half star (the 4.5 reflects only that I had to skip paragraphs and sometimes pages when the subject became less interesting to me or the analysis too difficult). There are certainly allusions to the triumph of the Third World and the supposedly imminent and unavoidable proletarian revolution/evolution in the 20th century (hallmarks of what I understand as "Marxist thought"), but it was 1962 when the book was published. And this is not a revised edition. I am willing to take a bit of '60s Marxist speculation in exchange for the amazing economic analysis that Hobswan, as a Marxist, also brings to his studies.

(4.5 stars)
In his preface, Hobsbawn explains: "The object of this book is not detailed narrative, but interpretation and what the French call haute vulgarisation. Its ideal reader is that theoretical construct, the intelligent and educated citizen, who is not merely curious about the past, but wishes to understand how and why the world has come to be what it is today and whither it is going. Hence it would be pedantic and uncalled-for to load the text with as heavy an apparatus of scholarship as it ought to carry for a more learned public. My notes therefore refer almost entirely to the sources of actual quotations and figures, or in some cases to the authority for statements which are particularly controversial or surprising."

I quote Hobsbawn's preface because it seems to capture the great strengths and modest weaknesses of this book. First, the prose. It can be cumbersome, particularly when bearing the weight of unfamiliar names, places and "isms." But the complexity is necessary in my opinion. The author is trying to stuff sweeping movements, grand figures of history, and the captial "M" Modern revolution into 300 pages of declarative sentences without abridging the truth. That's hard work. And as readers, we are asked to do some hard work as well.

But that brings up the great strength of Hobsbawn's work. He succeeds. Ideas like "Nationalism" and "Industrialism" become approachable in twenty pages or less. You see how the railroads were born and how they fueled speculation. How most people lived in agrarian communities, isolated, living and dying in the same county, perhaps never to receive more than a letter (there were no newspapers, no mass media of any type) from the outside world. Universities, cities, labor unions, roads, socialism - the development of all of these comes into much clearer focus under the direction of Hobswan's pen. And that is why I picked up the book as an "intelligent and educated citizen" - to understand the origins of these things, my world's past, more clearly.

As for Hobsbawn's Marxist background, I did not notice either time I read the book. In fact, without ... I would not have known. It played no role in my rating down one-half star (the 4.5 reflects only that I had to skip paragraphs and sometimes pages when the subject became less interesting to me or the analysis too difficult). There are certainly allusions to the triumph of the Third World and the supposedly imminent and unavoidable proletarian revolution/evolution in the 20th century (hallmarks of what I understand as "Marxist thought"), but it was 1962 when the book was published. And this is not a revised edition. I am willing to take a bit of '60s Marxist speculation in exchange for the amazing economic analysis that Hobswan, as a Marxist, also brings to his studies.

I have comparatively little to say about Eric Hobsbawm's history of the "dual revolutions" (the Industrial and the French), because I'm pretty sure I've only just finished the first act. Hobsbawm's goal seems to be to explain the world we live in now as a consequence of the dual revolutions, and he's spinning out his tale slowly and carefully. The first volume deals with the period from the start of the revolutions to the logical culmination in the revolutions of 1848. The way Hobsbawm tells it, the latter revolutions were in some sense inevitable given how the French and Industrial Revolutions played out. The lives of the poor in industrial cities grew intolerable; the bourgeoisie formed as a class and gained power; liberal politics, viewing men as atoms colliding in the marketplace, began its quest to be the only admissible political conception; the materialist worldview became the only socially acceptable one, powered by industry and by the rise of science; art -- in the person of a Ruskin, say -- violently rebelled; and the whole dance took its perfection of form in Karl Marx. (Says the man who has, embarrassingly, not yet read Marx.)

If I'm reading Hobsbawm right, the mechanics of the twin revolutions forced all of this to happen, and forced its eventual resolution in 1848. His knowledge of history, in its grubby details, is too profound to let him take this inevitability too far, but in broad outline he seems convinced that the dual revolutions created tensions that could only be resolved in one way. The powder keg explodes in the very last sentence of this volume; a better tease to lure me into the second one could not be devised.

Hobsbawm has a certain style that I can't quite pin down, but which is in many ways difficult to pierce. For one, the mass of evidence he lays down is imposing. But it's all in the form of sketches, with very few quotes from actual people. In part this may be because he expects me to know things that any educated person should know; if recent reading has taught me anything, it's that I'm not especially well educated.

An educated person should also be able to handle the highly recursive structure of his paragraphs. He's a very top-down writer: he'll mention the broad point he wants to make, then dive into the details and break each of them down into subpoints. He continues this for a few layers, and if you're paying close attention you can connect all of them. Hobsbawm's prose doesn't necessarily remind you of where you started as he moves along; he leaves that up to you.

The book could stand to be better footnoted, and it would make this reader happier if the for-further-reading notes were at the end of each section; a for-further-reading on how the dual revolutions impacted art, for instance, would be lovely. As it is, the book recommendations are all crammed together past the endpapers; I didn't realize they were there until perhaps 2/3 of the way through.

All of this is in the way of cavilling, however. Hobsbawm's argument is clear and convincing, and does an excellent job synthesizing all of European history during a 59-year-period into a 300-page book. I can't wait to start the next volume.

The author has, with this book, achived something great. He has managed to write about one of the most complex periods in European and World history in an acurate and detailed manner, whilst keeping it throughly readable. Why past reviews have attacked a lack of mention regarding the American Revolution escapes me. I would suggest that it is the French Revolution that warrents far greater attention due to its profound effects on political systems worldwide, and this book dose just that. For anybody interested in the transformation from absolutist to nationalist Europe, this is a mst read.

It is quite dificult to find a History book who is well written and also makes you think about the subject. This is the main diference about Hobswamn. He makes you think, and I believe this is the main aim for a Historian.

It is curious for me that one of the reviewers complaints about the lack of interest that the author shows for the American revolution. Maybe if we think in the world of XXth century or XXIst one we can consider this situation quite strange, but in the XVIIIth century the new born United States were not important in the world. Besides the influence of the principles of the American constitution cannot be compared with the influence of the French revolution. In the last book of the serie The Age of Catastrophe is when the rol of the United States is more important so he makes a brilliant anylisis of its influence in Contemporary History.
This book and the other three are very didactic and I recomend them as a very useful reading for teachers and pupils. Specially as a teacher I think that this book creates a great starting point to begin a debate at class. Even when your class is full of teenagers who ussually think History is a boring matter.

Neither textbook nor narrative, Hobsbawm's classic is an interpretive essay whose many insights, expressed in memorable style, continue to stimulate and inspire. He abandoned Stalinism long ago, and his nuanced Marxism sympathizes with workers, peasants and rebels, which still seems to provoke some critics. Revolution is seen as an effective response to industrialization and political centralization, but this is no endorsement of the oppressive regimes which emerged from various revolutionary situations. In going beyond politics and economy to include culture, Hobsbawm (not coincidentally a dedicated music listener) points toward the current style of comprehensive history text. While the focus is on Europe, global comparisons and impacts receive coverage, though some prior knowledge is helpful. In 1962 social and cultural history---much of it inspired by his innovations---was just starting to transform history's scope. Since the original text is mostly unrevised, this is the main limitation to a book that will instruct and inform for many more years. Hobsbawm's "Interesting Times" tells his compelling life story with great vitality even in his ninth decade. The times are indeed interesting!

Hobsbawm is a prominent historian. This is the first volume of trilogy which covers from 1789 to 1914 of Europe. The first volume is about how the modern civil society emerged in Europe through dual revolution. Modern civil society emerged took shape with French revolution and Industrial revolution. While in England, civil society rose only through industrial revolution, nation-states in continent were shaped with dual revolution. Dual revolution eradicated ancient regimes and caused the great socioeconomic earthquake. The period this volume covers was mired in the influence of its impact. The author illustrates a convincing picture of that age: what were the impacts on society, economy, thoughts, religion, sciences, and arts; how the modern civil society was completed.
But that kind of subjects has been widely tackled. Then why another book on the mountain of paper? The advantage of the trilogy lies in its way of depiction. The author persuasively shows that the history is not only about institutions, or economy, but also about human drama: how the people lived through their time. Moreover, the trilogy was written not for colleague scholars but for layperson. It¡¯s easy and fun to read. But, no doubt, it doesn¡¯t mean that it lacks depth: the aim of the book, the author said, is not description but interpretation. In that way, the book was endowed with coherence as meaningful entity. It¡¯s the virtue that is hard to achieve in scholarly writing intended to be read by other scholars.