Revolutionaries; contemporary essays [Hardcover]

E. J Hobsbawm (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1973

A collection of essays which represent a lifetime's writing,lectures & thoughts on revolutionary modern political developments throughout Europe.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This is a highly readable, lucid and well-written book from which any student of contemporary revolutions can derive a great deal of profit NEW STATESMAN This is an unusually rewarding book; almost every item bears witness to Professor Hobsbawm's sharp intelligence and felicitous style TLS This is an extraordinarily clear-sighted and accessible work of hindsight. INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Eric Hobsbawm was born in Alexandria in 1917 and educated in Vienna, Berlin, London and Cambridge. A Fellow of the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, with honorary degrees from universities in several countries, he is the author of many important works of history. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 278 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon Books; First US Edition edition (1973)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394487753
• ISBN-13: 978-0394487755
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #834,769 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will, December 3, 2002

By 

John P. Lacny (Pittsburgh, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Revolutionaries (Paperback)

This is a collection of Hobsbawm's essays on the subject(s), originally published at the height of the New Left. It's marked by its sober assessment of the real problems facing those who would remake society, despite (or perhaps because of?) the author's clear sympathies for such a project and for the people who attempted it.

The essay on Vietnam (published in 1965 just as the United States was first committing troops in large numbers), which with dialectical precision lays out the reasons why the defeat of the United States was inevitable, is alone worth the purchase price.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hobsbawm essays and reviews, January 9, 2008

By 

M. A. Krul (London, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Revolutionaries (Paperback)

As said above, the book "Revolutionaries" is a collection of mostly book reviews and a few essays by Eric Hobsbawm, written in the 1960s. Written in Hobsbawm's usual accessible and lively style, he considers all sorts of topics related to socialism and revolution. The quality of the reviews/essays varies a bit, but is generally high, and there are a few gems in it. Interesting in particular are his criticism of Hannah Arendt's idealist conception of revolution, his articles on historians and communism, his piece on the May 1968 movement in France, and an essay on "the revolution and sex" (which should really be a book of its own). Less succesful are some pieces on guerrilla war and on Leninism and revisionism. A curious addition is an article on revolution and cities, in which Hobsbawm discusses the oft-remarked, but rarely thoroughly analyzed, relation between city layout and planning on the one hand and the success of riots and insurrections on the other. Nowadays with Marxist influence firmly rooted in the area of social geography as well, there is more work on this, but Hobsbawm's article is a good preview.

On the whole, certainly worth a casual read.