HOBSBAWM, ERIC JOHN

HOBSBAWM, ERIC JOHN (Ernest; 1917– ), British historian. Born in Alexandria, Egypt, Hobsbawm came to Britain in the early 1930s and was educated at Cambridge before becoming professor of economic history at Birkbeck College, University of London. Widely regarded as one of the most distinguished historians of his time, Hobsbawm is internationally   known both for his works on labor history and social agitation, such as Primitive Rebels (1959), and for his magisterial four-volume account of modern European history – The Age of Revolution (1962), The Age of Capital (1975), The Age of Empire (1987), and The Age of Extremes (1994) – as well as for his survey of British economic history, Industry and Empire (1968). Always on the left politically, Hobsbawm remained an unorthodox supporter of the British Communist Party long after many other intellectuals had left it. More recently, he became known for his critiques of the British Labour Party. In 2002 Hobsbawm produced a widely noted autobiography, Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life. He also wrote jazz criticism under the pseudonym of Francis Newton. In 1998 he was made a Companion of Honour (C.H.), a rare distinction for a historian. (William D. Rubinstein (2nd ed.)