BOOK REVIEW: Neal ASCHERSON reviews "Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History by Richard J Evans" (The Guardian)

(image source: Litte Brown)

First pagagraphs:

In England, or rather in the comfortable parts of England, to have been a communist is still considered extraordinary. Not in Italy or France, of course, or Brazil or Bengal. Not in South Yorkshire, either, and certainly not in Scotland (whose post-1945 institutions owe so much to discreet communist initiatives). This polite amazement still unbalances assessments of Eric Hobsbawm. In his lifetime, reviewers and interviewers asked: “How can you still?” Then it became “How could he have?” This huge life study by Richard Evans, a historian colleague of social-democratic rather than Marxist views, tries to avoid that routine. “This biography… while not neglecting Eric’s intellectual and political development, focuses above all on his personal experiences and, indeed, on his inner life.”

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