The Age of Revolution
1789-1848

Amazing: Hobsbawm deconstructs the ‘great man’ hypotheses of history by redirecting the focus of his historical analysis on to the important underlying material and sociological processes. In other words: Rather than telling history from the lens of nation states, war and the important individuals who......more

This book is, I'm sure, an informative introduction to the interesting period between the first and second French Revolutions. But it reads like a lecture, which is to say, it goes for narrative at the expense of detail. The narrative is an interesting one, and Hobsbawm is evidently jumping-up-and-d......more

Unsurpassed erudition and magisterial prose from an Olympian height herein commingle, and often, as in later chapters (see below), superpose to make for most uncommon reading. He doesn't stoop to explain key concepts, does EJH (Chartism, Sans Culotte-ism, Garabaldinism, ...&c), or get into the weeds......more

The preface/introduction explicitly says that it's going to be a Eurocentric book focusing on France and Britain. Which is fair enough, although the title is a little dishonest - he only has limited space to cover an era of massive change and even though it's very disappointing not to see much about......more

The Long Nineteenth Century started with dual revolutions: the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. French ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity swept through Europe and colonies in the Americas. It was both popularly and militarily driven. The power of the nation was contagious, a......more