Hobsbawm was a Jewish Marxist historian born in 1917, and Revolution (which is the first from the Age trilogy) outlines the history of Europe from 1789 to 1848. Contrary to what most of us expect from a book of history, this paperback describes hardly any factual details of historical events during that period. The purpose of the book is not to tell you what happened (in fact, it is quite difficult to follow Hobsbawm’s discussion if you are not familiar a priori with what had happened), but to explain (basically from a Marxist point of view) why these things happened. Although the arguments are sometimes biased, the logic of discussion is mostly sound and often well supported by facts and figures.
Hobsbawm’s idea is simple. In short, there were two critical events during that period: the industrial revolution in Britain, and the revolution in France that ended up with the execution of Louis XVI. The former changed the economic structure of many societies and, in addition to many other effects, created a class of working poverty; the latter shaped the mentality of this group of poor people, cumulating in the things happened in the following decades.
Are we seeing the same problems again after the second wave of industrial revolution?
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