Eric Hobsbawm

British academic historian and Marxist historiographer (1917-2012) · United Kingdom · Academics · Died at 95

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He mapped the whole modern world - capitalism's rise, empires cracking, revolutions burning and cooling - in four books that treated centuries like acts in a single drama. A Marxist who never wavered, writing history as if politics and economics were the scaffolding under everything else.

Academics Writer / Author Literature History United Kingdom Europe 20th Century

A life in dates

2012Died1 October 2012“As the global expansion of Indian and Chinese restaurants suggests, xenophobia is directed against foreign people, not foreign cultural imports.”In their words13 November 2012Mapping the Nation (Mappings Series) (13 November 2012), p. 263.Read the whole statement

2008Bochum Historian PrizeAwardHonorary Citizen of ViennaAwardHonorary Doctor of the University of GironaAward2003Balzan PrizeAward2002“Liberalism was failing. If I'd been German and not a Jew, I could see I might have become a Nazi, a German nationalist.”In their words14 September 2002As quoted by Eric Hobsbawm, in “A Question of Faith,” Maya Jaggi, The Guardian (Sept. 14, 2002)Read the whole statement

2000Ernst Bloch AwardAward1999Leipzig Book Award for European UnderstandingAwardMedlicott MedalAward1997Wolfson History PrizeAward1995Deutscher Memorial PrizeAwardLionel Gelber PrizeAward1992“Historians are to nationalism what poppy-growers in Pakistan are to the heroin-addicts: we supply the essential raw material for the market.”In their wordsFebruary 1992"Ethnicity and Nationalism in Europe Today" (February 1992). Anthropology Today.Read the whole statement

1971“First, utopianism is probably a necessary social device for generating the superhuman efforts without which no major revolution is achieved.”In their wordsPrimitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the 19th and 20th Centuries (1971), p. 60.Read the whole statement

1962“Though the web of history cannot be unravelled into separate threads without destroying it, a certain amount of subdivision of the subject is, for practical purposes, essential.”In their wordsPrefaceRead the whole statement

“France provided the codes of law, the model of scientific and technical organization, the metric system of measurement for most countries.”In their wordsChap. 3 : The French RevolutionRead the whole statement

1917Born9 June 1917

Also in Deutsch

Photos 6

Eminent Historian Professor Eric Hobsbawm at the interactive session with the students of Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Millia in New Delhi on December 21, 2004

A Era das Revoluções

Eric Hobsbawm (cropped)

Eric Hobsbawm cropped

Eric Hobsbawm, Sozialrebellen 1971

Eric Hobsbawm

In their own words 10

Eric Hobsbawm

10 statements, newest first

As the global expansion of Indian and Chinese restaurants suggests, xenophobia is directed against foreign people, not foreign cultural imports.
Nov 13, 2012, Mapping the Nation (Mappings Series) (13 November 2012), p. 263., Own words
Look at London. Of course it matters to all of us that London's economy flourishes.
2009, The Guardian (2009)., Own words
Liberalism was failing. If I'd been German and not a Jew, I could see I might have become a Nazi, a German nationalist.
Sep 14, 2002, As quoted by Eric Hobsbawm, in “A Question of Faith,” Maya Jaggi, The Guardian (Sept. 14, 2002), Own words

Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0

Awards

Bochum Historian Prize2008

Honorary Doctor of the University of Girona2008

Honorary Citizen of Vienna2008

Balzan Prize2003

Ernst Bloch Award2000

Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding1999

Medlicott Medal1999

Wolfson History Prize1997

Lionel Gelber Prize1995

Deutscher Memorial Prize1995

Honorary Doctor of the University of Vienna

Honorary Doctor of the Charles University of Prague

Fellow of the British Academy

Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature

Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Companion of Honour

Family

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Eric Hobsbawm

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About this person

Born in Alexandria in 1917, Hobsbawm spent his childhood in Vienna and Berlin until his parents died and Hitler's rise sent him to London with his adoptive family. He served in the Second World War, then earned his PhD at Cambridge and began the work that would define him: the tetralogy tracing the "long 19th century" through revolution, capital, and empire, then the "short 20th" in The Age of Extremes. He also edited the volume that gave us "invented traditions," the idea that many national rituals are newer than they pretend. His Marxism was lifelong and unapologetic, shaping every line. In 1998 he was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour; in 2003 he won the Balzan Prize for his analysis of Europe's violent century and his ability to fuse scholarship with literary force. He died in 2012, still president of Birkbeck.

Country

United Kingdom

In common with Eric

Jürgen KockaBoth received Bochum Historian Prize

Marcel van der LindenBoth received Bochum Historian Prize Lutz RaphaelBoth received Bochum Historian Prize

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John Wycliffe61.7

John Napier63.2

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