Devrim
3rd October 2009, 09:26
I have just finished reading Eric Hobsbawn's autobiography, 'Interesting Times', and was wondering if anybody else on here had read it or had an opinion on his work in general.
Hobsbawn is a very strong writer, and a good historian though the closer his work gets to present day, the more his politics annoy me. Even Eurocommunists can write well about the 'Age of Revolution' though.
Despite being well written and easy to read, I got the impression that he hadn't led a particulary interesting life after he arrived at Cambridge university as a young man. I suppose that academics don't have that interesting lives, but I also got the impression that he wasn't very intellectually interesting either.
I think that 1956, and the Hungarian uprising, was certainly a telling point for those in the Communist Parties, and one can admire those who broke with Stalinism and spoke out. In a perverse sort of way one can even admire those who resolutly defended the Stalinist crushing of the revolt if only for their strength of conviction and not their politics.
Hobsbawn, however, knew that something very wrong was happening, and yet still remained in the party without having the courage to speak out and break from it. This and despite his disdain for ex-communists having turned into neo-conservatives, his subsequent role in the development of the 'New Labour' project gives me the impression of a man lacking thecorage of his own convictions.
Devrim
Hobsbawn is a very strong writer, and a good historian though the closer his work gets to present day, the more his politics annoy me. Even Eurocommunists can write well about the 'Age of Revolution' though.
Despite being well written and easy to read, I got the impression that he hadn't led a particulary interesting life after he arrived at Cambridge university as a young man. I suppose that academics don't have that interesting lives, but I also got the impression that he wasn't very intellectually interesting either.
I think that 1956, and the Hungarian uprising, was certainly a telling point for those in the Communist Parties, and one can admire those who broke with Stalinism and spoke out. In a perverse sort of way one can even admire those who resolutly defended the Stalinist crushing of the revolt if only for their strength of conviction and not their politics.
Hobsbawn, however, knew that something very wrong was happening, and yet still remained in the party without having the courage to speak out and break from it. This and despite his disdain for ex-communists having turned into neo-conservatives, his subsequent role in the development of the 'New Labour' project gives me the impression of a man lacking thecorage of his own convictions.
Devrim