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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Commentaries on current events by Hobsbawm,
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This review is from: Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism (Paperback)
"Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism" is the title of a collection of speeches and articles on peace and war in modern times by Eric Hobsbawm, famous Communist historian. Most of them deal with the meaning of the nation-state in the current times, the flaws of the American empire, the limits to the threat of terrorism and Hobsbawm's perception of the 20th Century as a century of ever increasing violence.
Despite Hobsbawm's political reputation, his comments are on the whole moderate, nuanced, sometimes even meek. There are quite some interesting observations and insights scattered through the different pieces, but many of them are not very structured, and the whole is poorly systematized - it is not clear what Hobsbawm specifically is trying to argue, or what coherence he gives to these separate observations. What one can distill from this collection is that Hobsbawm thinks the threat of terrorism is overrated, and in fact the danger of excessive response by Western states and imperial activity much greater; that 'democracy' has much less meaning than it is usually assumed to have, and that certainly elections and substantive democracy are by no means the same thing, making the project of 'spreading democracy' hopeless and dangerous; and that the strongly globalized and connected world has severed much of the traditional sense of duty and loyalty towards the state on the part of citizens in the West, while at the same time making global problems appear that go beyond the competences of individual states and their political institutions to cope with.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hobsbawm's insights into the State of Things,
By
This review is from: Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism (Paperback)
Eric Hobsbawm as historins, sociologists, cultural studies types, informed humanities and liberal arts academics and others know, is possibly the last of that generation of historians directly connected to the British left of the 1930s and 1940s. His marxism is definitely lower case, informed by close analysis of popular activism and how the people may in fact create democracy.
This book is a collection of reworked speeaches given around the world. Surprisingly for this reader at least, it was not characterized by a vigorous attack on the Bush presidency, the neo-cons and the deregulationist nincompoops of the mid-2000s. Rather, it is a well documented series of commentaries on the parlous state of things in a world running backwards from liberal democracy. Hobsbawm is a confident older sage. He claims and wears his authority easily. Every chapter offers a new set of statistics that support his premise that the world is more dangerous due to the emergence of small level ideological shifts that have been magnified by poorly constructed idealism in the west. His use of the term "barbarised belligerants" is brilliant, especially when read against his view that globalization is always asymetrical and unbalanced. This is a great read for people seeking some hope and understanding amidst the global turmoil. (There's not much on economics as such, but the issue is of course what kind of barbarity allowed the economic meltdown in the first place?) Hobsbawn offers a nondogmatic, gentlemanly perspective.
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Terrible War on Terror,
This review is from: Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism (Paperback)
This is a short collection of essays on the post-911 Bush era "war on terror" and related issues. They are written in the clear, crisp and jargon-free prose that is one of Hobsbawn's hallmarks. As with his many other works, this now rare grace of language and style alone makes this collection a worthwhile read. Two points about the substance of this collection: first, these essays will stand as one of the most insightful takes on the Bush years' aggressive foreign policy at its height. That is also why it is difficult to know to what degree those insights will remain relevant now that that era is over. Time and a few more elections will tell. Second, Hobsbawn's more enduring contribution here is his linking of what I will call an American neo-imperialism under the guise of "the war on terror" with the domestic ideology and politics of the country's hard Right, and its unarticulated (and probably unconscious) reactions against the loss of post-World War II global hegemony. The extreme agenda of the war on terror is thus to be found in US domestic politics and culture more than in real security threats. Hobsbawn also points that enthusiasts of American empire such as British historian Niel Ferguson, who see it as a progressive force on the model of the Pax Britannica of the 19th century, fundamentally misunderstand both British and US power and policy. The former never reached hegemonic dimensions (French, German, Russian and even Japanese rivals acting as effective checks in various regions) and was dependent more on accommodation with local realities than on superior military power. As always, Hobsbawn's arguments are carefully reasoned and sustained by real information. They are well worth reading.
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