On the Edge of the New Century: Eric Hobsbawm in Conversation with Antonio Polito.On the Edge of the New Century: Eric Hobsbawm Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm CH (born June 9, 1917) is a British Marxist historian and author. Hobsbawm was a long-standing member of the now defunct Communist Party of Great Britain and the associated Communist Party Historians Group. He is president of Birkbeck, University of London. in Conversation with Antonio Polito Translated from the Italian by Allan Cameron The New Press. 176 pages. $21.00. The British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm is most famous for his four-volume history of the modern world (The Age of Revolution, The Age of Capital, The Age of Empire, and The Age of Extremes). Here, though, we have the historian as interview subject. Antonio Polito, the London correspondent of La Repubblica, an Italian newspaper, conducted the interview in 1999. Hobsbawm comments on the rise of Clinton, Blair, and Schroeder, draws distinctions between the right and the left, ruminates about the effects of globalization globalization Process by which the experience of everyday life, marked by the diffusion of commodities and ideas, is becoming standardized around the world. Factors that have contributed to globalization include increasingly sophisticated communications and transportation , and worries about the omnipotence om·nip·o·tent adj. Having unlimited or universal power, authority, or force; all-powerful. See Usage Note at infinite. n. 1. One having unlimited power or authority: the bureaucratic omnipotents. with which the United States presides over global affairs. He calls Blair "Thatcher Thatch·er , Margaret Hilda. Baroness. Born 1925. British Conservative politician who served as prime minister (1979-1990). Her administration was marked by anti-inflationary measures, a brief war in the Falkland Islands (1982), and the passage of a in trousers," and says that the motto of the left, minimally, should be: "Yes to the market, no to free market society." The book is a bit limited by its largely European perspective and its preoccupation with the events of 1999. The NATO NATO: see North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO in full North Atlantic Treaty Organization International military alliance created to defend western Europe against a possible Soviet invasion. bombing campaign in Kosovo, which Hobsbawm opposed, looms large. Polito's questions are sometimes mundane, perhaps losing a bit in the translation. Still, Hobsbawm has a lot of thoughtful things to say about the current state of the world and the direction ahead. For these cogitations from one of the great living historians, the book is worth a look. |
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