Talk:Eric Hobsbawm

September 2006 messages

I removed stuff about him being a communist. You need to prove to the reader he is. This is a very sensitive legal issue. Please don't just revert go get the sources you need to "prove" he is. thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.204.172.26 (talk) 02:51, 9 September 2006‎

I rereverted the change alluded to above, his belief is communism is long-documented, particularly in his auto-biography Interesting Times. Catchpole 09:17, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Controversy

I don't think anybody's biography should start with the criticisms directed towards such person. It is missleading. I think they should always figure at the end of the article, when the reader is more likely tounderstand the context of the controversy.--Varano 10:17, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree, but what in this article do you describe as criticisms? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wycombe (talk • contribs)

The article says: "In 1956, he spoke out against the Soviet invasion of Hungary and left the British Communist Party to join its Italian equivalent"

That´s not true. As Hobsbawm makes clear in his autobiograpgy, Interesting Times, he remained in Britain´s communist party well into the late 80s, just before the Soviet Union´s collapse —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.45.170.2 (talk • contribs)

SIGN YOUR POSTS USING ~~~~ Travb 02:04, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Hobsbawm's whole political life centers on his early decision to become a communist and thus to join the Communist Party in Britain, where he was a student and where he established his career. Calling someone a communist is not controversial except in the US, where it is used as an empty insult. Hobsbawm became controversial in part when he told a British interviewer that he thought the costs of establishing communism, in the millions of lives would have been worth it, if it had succeeded, though he had in fact also written that they would not. His decision to remain a member of the party after Khrushchev's revelations was a more important source of controversy. Actio 19:42, 15 July 2007 (UTC)actio

Another Controversy

From the article: Hobsbawm has attracted criticism for his continued support for Communism. In an interview with Canadian cultural critic Michael Ignatieff on British television, he responded to the question of whether 20 million deaths would have been justified if the proposed Communist utopia had been created as a consequence by saying "yes". When did that interview took place?Daniel Trielli 23:54, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Added a "citation needed" tagDaniel Trielli 23:54, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Eric Hobsbawm visited Colombia in 1963

From: Colombia’s elections: the regional exception http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-protest/colombia_3342.jsp

When the historian Eric Hobsbawm visited Colombia in 1963, he wrote that he had discovered a country where the avoidance of a social revolution had made violence the constant, universal, and omnipresent centre of public life.

What book is or article is this refering too? It is frustrating, becuse the author doesnt mention which book this is.

Signed: Travb 02:03, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Substitute

Listen, I have already read three books written by Hobsbawm, but I actually don´t really like his style. I feel he goes so deep in the details that it is hard to get the general pic of what happened throughout the history. However, he is the unique one I know so far that wrote on the modern history with specific books for each century, and that´s nice. I would say the size of the books are also ideal to the proposed task. In this token, does anyone here could tell wikipedia readers some writer that could substitute Hobsbawm? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.196.125.95 (talk) 20:38, 16 May 2007‎

Prcye-Jones

After reading the entire review of Hobsbawm's memoirs by Perry Anderson in the London Review of Books, and the one by Pryce-jones (?) in the New Criterion, I removed the latter. It is not a serious review but merely a screed and in my opinion focuses too much on his rejection of identification with israel although jewish.

I would welcome a serious negative review, but it is not possible to read Anderson's without some serious questions about Hobsbawm's political choices. Serious criticism is more likely to come from the UK, but considering that Hobsbawm has been accorded numerous awards and honors for his professional career,it is not likely to be as one-sided and ill considered as the New Criterion review of H's memoirs. Actio 19:38, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect, your opinion about the quality of David Pryce-Jones's review [1] in the The New Criterion are purely subjective, and merely to remove a link that is about Hobsbawm because you do think it is a very good review is very much of a POV edit. Pryce-Jones's review may or may not be a good review, but to remove because one person thinks it is not a very good review makes for a problematic edit. Books reviews like any other form of literature are subjective; there is no standard universal standard for what makes for a good book review. If you could offer a definition of what you consider to be a good book review (which you have not), it will still be your own personal point of view, and nothing more. Likewise, you feel that Prcye-Jones is out to lunch for criticizing Hobsbawms's anti-Zionism, but that is you have already noted, is your own opinion; please do not deny other people a chance to assess Prcye-Jones's arguements merely because you dislike them. Moreover, why is criticizing Hobsbawm for not being a fan of Israel an illegitimate criticism? Personally, I don't like Hobsbawm or his politics at all, but I don't see any reason to remove any of the pro-Hobsbawm links. Most of the links here are very pro-Hobsbawm, but given that the subject is Hobsbawm, there are very germane and relevant to the subject, and so should stay. By the same token, the anti-Hobsbawm links should be retained regardless of one's opinion about their quality or their politics.--A.S. Brown (talk) 20:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Egyptian Jew?

This article is included in the category Egyptian Jews. Hobsbawm was indeed born in Alexandria, and lived there until he was aged two. But both of his parents were European, Ashkenazi Jews temporarily resident in Egypt, which at the time was a British colony; they were not part of the Egyptian Jewish community. This categorisation is misleading, and unless anyone objects I suggest removing the tag. RolandR (talk) 22:14, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

In the absence of any negative comments, I have deleted this misleading category. RolandR (talk) 19:23, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Through I would agree with your statement that just being born in Egypt does not necessarily make one a member of the Egyptian Jewish community, in 1917 Egypt was a British protectorate, and was never a British colony. Having said that much, Hobsbawm grew up in Berlin and London, not Alexandria, making his background and roots Anglo-German, not Egyptian, and I agree with that you are right to remove that category, which gives an all-together false picture of Hobsbawm's roots and background.--A.S. Brown (talk) 20:33, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

The distinction between "colony" and "protectorate" was more in the minds of the British occupiers than the subject peoples. The definition as a colony is not just my own quirk; it is repeated through the pages of Wikipedia. For instance, History of modern Egypt starts "The History of modern Egypt is generally accepted as beginning in 1882, when Egypt became a de facto British colony."

Thanks for concurring with my main point, though. RolandR (talk) 23:17, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I concur, as well. Hobsbawm, himself, is not a practicing Jew in the first place, and has written quite a bit how the modern use of ethnic labels is part of a cultural hegemony that deserves critique, so in his case, the labels are especially problematic.--LeValley 17:40, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Languages

He speaks English, German, French, Spanish and Italian, and reads Dutch, Portuguese and Catalan.

Why is this worth mentioning? This seems like a fairly normal range of languages for a very distinguished historian to know. His knowledge of English is certainly not worth mentioning! Most academics I know have a good knowledge of Latin, Greek, English (of course), German, French, and Italian, and one or more other languages, such as Modern Greek, Russian, and Spanish as well as other ancient languages.--195.194.143.91 (talk) 10:13, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

No reason to not include such info. Kasaalan (talk) 10:58, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

If complete and accurate, this is interesting because it shows what he did not know, especially Latin, Greek, and Russian. But is it complete? Seadowns (talk) 12:09, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Moved to England in 1933

I assume the family fled Hitler - if so that should be mentioned. And did he really work as a tutor and au pair at the age of 12?Nitpyck (talk) 05:07, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

He says he worked as a tutor and "au pair" in Chapter 3 of his autobiography (and from the context, it's clear it was before 1931, when he was 14): here's the quote -

I spent my last school year in Vienna alone, or rather as a sort of male au pair. Someone discovered a Mrs Effenberger, widow of a colonel and, like so many good Viennese, from southern Bohemia – she came from Pisek – whose son Bertl, two or three years younger than me, wanted English lessons. In return for these, and possibly a very modest subsidy, she was prepared to look after me.

Thomas Peardew (talk) 08:41, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

note from meta IP

copied from Meta :

Dear Wikipedia,

I admire your work and would be willing to help resolve disputed issues; my expertise is in history, social sciences, and mass media.

While your statement of policy seems rather complex to me, I would simply note that the biographical sketch of Eric J. Hobsbawm is a hatchet job masquerading as a disinterested, scholarly overview. In particular, the author uses as a bludgeon the fact that Hobsbawm is a Marxist: This fact is stated at the outset, and could be seen as simply an observation. But later on, the author links Hobsbawm to Joseph Stalin – clearly, this is an attempt to warp the achievements of an historian who is widely celebrated as one of the leading intellectuals of our era. According to the reasoning of this biography's author, the work of anyone who is Catholic should be dismissed summarily – because Catholicism led to the Inquisition.

Cheap shots should have no place in Wikipedia.

Sincerely,

William S. Solomon

It's worth reading EH's autobiography, Interesting Times written in 2002, for a nuanced view of the issue. There's no doubt he lived and died a Marxist, and he says he was a member of the Communist Party "for fifty years" from 1932. He makes no secret of this, and he describes in detail the many disadvantages his political status brought him (for example, he spent the whole of WWII as a sergeant in the army in jobs that made no use at all of his fluent German - or his intelligence).Thomas Peardew (talk) 08:46, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Agreed, one might even argue that Hobspawn is now a discredited historian. An intellectual but an unpleasant one. User talk:Kentish 18:53, 20 March 2021 (GMT) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.3.134.204 (talk)

Gove

Unhelpful sniping from ten years ago
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The very idea of mentioning such a fool as Michael Gove in an article on one of the finest historians of our age makes my blood boil. Marxism is clearly NOT an intrinsically evil ideology as he suggests, and the day that Gove 'weeps hot tears' for the tens if not hundreds of millions of blighted, despoiled and shortened lives resulting from the ravages of his beloved free-market capitalism is the day he deserves to have a dig at Eric Hobsbawm. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.29.42.191 (talk) 18:01, 11 January 2011 (UTC) No more ridiculous than your opinion that Gove is a “fool” and assuming that is somehow factual. Hobspawn was an intellectual but he was also vile....in his own words, he justified the slaughter of millions in the hope that Communism would be achieved. Marxist is inherently evil. All the available historical evidence proves that. Mind how you go in a world currently polluted by Covid-19 brought to you by communist China. Keep safe. User talk: Kentish 018: 46, 20 March 2021 (GMT) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.3.134.204 (talk)

Praise and blame

I have deleted the section titled 'Praise and Criticism,' for several reasons. First of all, it contained a potentially libelous statement. True the statement was referenced, but you can not get around the libel policy by merely referencing libelous statements. You must provide references to prove that the statement is not libelous, i.e., that the assertion made (in this case that Hobsbawm, a historian, knowingly falsified history) is a true statement. In the second place, the entire section seemed to be ill conceived. It was called 'praise and criticism' but the 'criticisms' were not actual criticisms of any theory or argument made by Hobsbawm. They were more like emotional outbursts of disgust and enmity. The section would have been more properly titled 'praise and blame' or 'children fighting;' such a section has no place in a quality encyclopedia. If someone desires to make the point that Hobsbawm was a controversial figure who elicited both acclamation and vituperation, fair enough. But the section I deleted did not explicitly make that point. A section on criticism ought to stand alone and not be paired with acclamations. Acclamation, in the context of criticism, becomes nothing more than an argument from authority, and the intense dislike displayed in these 'criticisms' are alike merely arguments from authority. Proper criticisms must show some short-coming of the work or character of the subject. Political views, no matter how repugnant to an individual encyclopedia author, cannot be construed as short-comings of the subject. Therefor, statements along the lines of: He is a communist, I don't like communists and He ought to "cry hot tears" for having the views he has, are not valid criticisms. I examined a number of (more than five and less than twenty) other biographies currently in wikipedia and found none containing a section anything like the section I deleted. I understand that Hobsbawm is a controversial figure, as any openly communist celebrity must be in western society. That is no excuse for posting nasty quotes against him, nor for posting wild acclamations either. I did consider attempting to edit the section, but I don't know anything about either Hobsbawm or his critics, and the edits I would have had to make would have been so extensive as to render the section meaningless. I thought the better course to be to delete it entirely.

I have forgotten my account password, so I will just sign as Jamie. 68.80.133.140 (talk) 06:39, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

IMHO, the reasons for deleting this section don't make sense at all. The critics stress what they perceive as major flaws in Hobsbawm's work. This hardly amounts to "children fighting". I have restored the section and, should it be deleted again, will restore it yet again until some serious reason is given. Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 22:35, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Why is it that an article about a celebrated historian contains so little discussion of his actual scholarship? The works section of this article reduces Hobsbawm's massive and extremely influential body of work to a few lines and a link to a dummy page on the dual revolution, and it is dwarfed by this seriously misleading praise and criticism section. The latter ignores his remarkably deep influence on the historical profession: his dual revolution thesis continues to generate debate (see the Edmund Burke article on the long nineteenth century); his social banditry book informed the Subaltern Studies school and area studies in general (see for example Ranajit Guha's works and the Donald Crummey edited collection on Banditry and Protest in Africa); and his Invention of Tradition edited collection has become a seminal work with astonishing influence (ie, we now have books called the Invention of Ethiopia). These are but three prominent examples. Yet the reader of this article learns neither of this influential scholarship nor of the critiques it has generated; instead, we read only of Hobsbawm's supposed apologies for Stalinism. (I say supposed because the Times link to the Ignatieff interview does not work.) While it is of course entirely appropriate to discuss Hobsbawm's politics, the article's current presentation reduces these to a caricature through its neglect of his own arguments and its absurd focus on the claims of some of his detractors (I am not including Tony Judt in this category). One gets the impression that Hobsbawm is not one of the twentieth century's most gifted and prolific historians but instead some kind of disingenous Soviet-era hack.

I am not a wikipedian. I do not know how to sign my name, but it is James. I am not the Jamie above.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.0.73.77 (talk) 18:39, 29 December 2011‎

There is no argument whatsoever justifying the deletion of sourced and relevant information. FYI, one can be a very gifted historian/writer and a self-deluded Soviet-era stalinist. Providing quality work about one topic does not preclude one from being a disingenuous hack about another. Criticism of Hobsbawm's politics is a notable and highly relevant topic, so the section is absolutely not misleading. Removing it was vandalism. The article should indeed have more substance about Hobsbawm's scholarship and body of work. Fine, so contribute and add some. Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 15:59, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

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Clerical error?

I don't understand how a clerical error could change his surname to be different from that of his parents. If I registered the birth of my new-born child, and the clerk made an error with the surname (or any of the given names, for that matter), I'd report it and have it fixed. I would not just say "Oh well, our son now has a different surname from the rest of his entire family, and he's stuck with it and there's nothing anyone can do about it". And neither would any other parent. There has to be more to the story than a mere clerical error. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:06, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I could imagine not finding it easy to push that correction through the Egyptian bureaucracy of 1917. And perhaps they tried to have it fixed but, given that they soon left for Vienna and Berlin, had rather a hard time of it. Sumana Harihareswara 13:20, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Snyder on Hobsbawm

Timothy Snyder: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/01/opinion/hobsbawm-communism/index.html ColaXtra (talk) 17:43, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Historian or propagandist?

WP:FORUM
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I haven't read more than few pages of Hobsbowm and I don't think I will after this: In his book "Nations and nationalism since 1780" (1991) he claims that the Greek fighters community of Souliotes were "Albanians" (p. 65). This is passable, based mainly on some 19th c. western travellers for whom the Balkans of that time was a terra incognita. He doesn't provide any footnote or something supporting his claim, but still this can be acceptable. But looking in page 53 I found something really funny. He claims that he knows something about Albanians of the classical antiquity! He says "This (something about language and nationalism) may well be the case among the Albanians, living under rival cultural influences since classical antiquity, ..." (again no references). Does anyone else knows anything on the whereabouts of Albanians in classical antiquity? Possibly Hobsbowm, publishing hastily a book a year, didn't notice in 1991 that communism in Albania is over and he wanted to offer to the national-socialistic regime of Albania a small gift.--Euzen (talk) 09:19, 25 October 2012 (UTC) Book was based on some 1985 lectures. ColaXtra (talk) 10:25, 29 October 2012 (UTC) The talk page is for the discussion of the improvement of the article, not for a general discussion of the subject. Please take it elsewhere. --Saddhiyama (talk) 11:44, 29 October 2012 (UTC) It was my small contribution to the criticism included in the article that Hobsbawm "steadily corrupted knowledge into propaganda, and scorns the concept of objective truth"--Euzen (talk) 13:01, 5 November 2012 (UTC) Actually, quite a few historians have researched the Origin of the Albanians, and the generally accepted conclusion is that the modern Albanians are the descendants of the indigenous populations that lived in the Balkans in prehistoric times and in classical antiquity. Unknown peoples by the name of "Albanoi", "Arbonios" or "Arbonites" are mentioned in ancient sources. So, in the future, please look more closely into the available information on a given topic before you accuse anyone of writing propaganda. HeWsb (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 08:00, 22 December 2012 (UTC) Thanks for the above link to Origin of the Albanians which proves that there is no serious bibliography claiming that we know something about prehistoric or classical "Albanians". The pseudo-information about "indigenous populations of the Balkans" is supported by this source: John Van Antwerp Fine, The early Medieval Balkans: A critical survey from the sixth century to the late twelfth century. University of Michigan Press, 1991. Actually Hobsbawm scores an auto-goal, because while he claims that nations are a modern construction, at the same time he discovers Albanians in antiquity. Also, he doesn't specify who were those "rival cultural influences". It seems that Albanians were so undecided between "rival" literate cultures, that they learned how to write only in 19th century.--Euzen (talk) 08:57, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

IPA for "Hobsbawm"

/ˈhɒbz.bɔːm/ or perhaps /ˈhɒbs.bɔːm/? What do you think? Listen also http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=hobsbawm&submit=Submit --Крушевљанин Иван (talk) 14:40, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Date of marriage to second wife?

Does anyone have a citation of this information?

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Service in WWII

This service is just mentioned in the lead-in, but no details are given in the article. What was it, if anything? Seadowns (talk) 11:49, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

According to the article "During the Second World War, he served in the Royal Engineers and the Army Educational Corps". It is uncited though. DuncanHill (talk) 11:54, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

It's in his autobiography: he wasn't very happy that his political views barred him from war work that might have made use of his fluent German (and his intelligence). He was initially in the 560th Field Company of the Royal Engineers, and transferred to the Army Education Corps (AEC) in early autumn 1941. Very shortly afterwards his former RE unit was ordered overseas to Singapore, where it was captured by the Japanese and used to build the Burma Railway (and where one-third of its men were to die). In the AEC he was a sergeant-instructor, and he says very little indeed about what actually did, with (perhaps) this one exception:

"I got to know and learn from the small community of serious jazz and blues fans in and out of London. Indeed, one of my more successful army educational enterprises was a jazz record class I organized for a so-called Young Soldiers training unit in deepest Dorset, for which I travelled regularly to Bournemouth to borrow records, and improve my own knowledge from one of them, Charles Fox".

Thomas Peardew (talk) 14:08, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Disputed Inclusion - Inclusion of a personal opinion

Hello Wikipedians,

In the first paragraph of the page, serving as a short description of Eric Hobsbawn, there is the inclusion of a personal opinion of a previous editor: "Ideologically a Marxist, his socio-political convictions influenced the character of his work, though this is true of any coherent intellectual." I believe the latter statement--implying that socio-political convictions are a general factor off 'any coherent intellectual'--is a breach of encyclopedic neutrality and dubious at best.

I'd suggest to remove it after having been checked by other wikipedians.

Best regards — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.45.249.136 (talk) 11:37, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

OK by me, and I wholly agree (and is there an echo here?) Thomas Peardew (talk) 13:04, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

I've removed the (frankly rather odd) wording objected to. I'll remove the duplicate section below too. DuncanHill (talk) 14:36, 27 September 2018 (UTC)