Eric Hobsbawm is a Fellow of the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Before retirement he taught at Birkbeck College, University of London, and after retirement at the New School for Social Research in New York.
Hobsbawm's classic account of Europe in the third quarter of the 19th century. Its Marxist thrust provides for a passionate but always erudite and searching exploration of the great epoch of industrial capitalism with the enormous riches that it created for some and the deprivation bestowed upon others. It forms part of what is now a four-volume panorama covering the period from the French Revolution to the present day, but each volume stands alone and this is one of the finest. (Kirkus UK)