Hobsbawm, Eric John Ernest , 1917–2012, British Marxist historian, b. Alexandria, Egypt. Educated at Cambridge (Ph.D., 1951), he joined the Communist party there in 1936. He served in the British army (1939–46), taught history at Birkbeck College, Univ. of London (1947–82), and was a history fellow at Kings College, Cambridge (1949–55). Following his retirement from Birkbeck, he taught at several universities in the United States. Hobsbawm is best known for The Age of Revolution: 1789–1848 (1962), The Age of Capital: 1848–1875 (1975), The Age of Empire: 1874–1914 (1987), and The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914–1991 (1994). His other books include The Jazz Scene (1959); a memoir, Interesting Times (2003); How to Change the World: Tales of Marx and Marxism (2011); and the anthology Fractured Times: Culture and Society in the Twentieth Century (2014).
See biography by R. J. Evans (2019).
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