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The Age of Empire

1875-1914

Part of History of the Modern World

Author Eric Hobsbawm
Paperback
$21.00 US
Knopf | Vintage
5.2"W x 7.96"H x 1"D  
On sale Apr 23, 1989 | 448 Pages | 9780679721758
Grades AP/IB
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In The Age of Empire, the third in Hobsbawm's four-volume world history, he examines the crucial years that formed the modern world. It is the story of the strange death of the nineteenth century, the world made by and for liberal middle classes in the name of universal progress and civilization. It is about hopes realized that turned into fears: an era of unparalleled peace engendering an era of unparalleled war; revolt and revolution emerging on the outskirts of a stable and flourishing Western society; new and sudden mass labor movements that rejected capitalism; and new middle classes that rejected liberalism.  It is about world empires built and held with almost contemptuous ease by small numbers of Europeans, whose rule was to last barely a lifetime, and a European domination of world history, society, and politics, never more confident than at the moment when it was about to disappear.

"It is Mr. Hobsbawm's achievement both to have captured the exuberance of an age, and to have shown how and why that world was coming to an end.... He not only captures the age of empire, he also illuminates the course of the twentieth century."--Paul Kennedy, The Economist

"One of the great achievements of historical writing in recent decades."--New York Review of Books

The other volumes in the series, The Age of Revolution, The Age of Capital, and The Age of Extremes are all available from Vintage Books.
© Jerry Bauer
Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012) was educated in Vienna, Berlin, London, and Cambridge. From 1947-1982, Hobsbawm was Professor of Economic and Social History at Birbeck College, University of London. He also taught at Stanford, MIT, Cornell, and the New School for Social Research from 1982 to 2001. A Fellow of the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was the author of more than 20 books of history including The Age of Revolution, The Age of Capital, The Age of Empire, and The Age of Extremes. View titles by Eric Hobsbawm
"Its sheer power and eloquence will make this book a classic." —Neal Ascherson, Sunday Observer (London)

"It is Mr. Hobsbawm's achievement both to have captured the exuberance of an age, and to have shown how and why that world was coming to an end. . . . He not only captures the age of empire he also illuminates the course of the twentieth century." —Kennedy, The Economist (London)

"A virtuoso performance. . . . Few, if any, present practitioners of the historian's craft can equal. the astonishing range and dazzling erudition of Mr. Hobsbawm's scholarship." —David M. Kennedy, The New York Times Book Review

"A splendid answer to those critics who complain that academic historians no longer write readable prose. . . . The great strength of this book is the way in which what seems in so many ways a wholly vanished epoch is related to our situation today." —James Joll, The New York Review of Books

About

In The Age of Empire, the third in Hobsbawm's four-volume world history, he examines the crucial years that formed the modern world. It is the story of the strange death of the nineteenth century, the world made by and for liberal middle classes in the name of universal progress and civilization. It is about hopes realized that turned into fears: an era of unparalleled peace engendering an era of unparalleled war; revolt and revolution emerging on the outskirts of a stable and flourishing Western society; new and sudden mass labor movements that rejected capitalism; and new middle classes that rejected liberalism.  It is about world empires built and held with almost contemptuous ease by small numbers of Europeans, whose rule was to last barely a lifetime, and a European domination of world history, society, and politics, never more confident than at the moment when it was about to disappear.

"It is Mr. Hobsbawm's achievement both to have captured the exuberance of an age, and to have shown how and why that world was coming to an end.... He not only captures the age of empire, he also illuminates the course of the twentieth century."--Paul Kennedy, The Economist

"One of the great achievements of historical writing in recent decades."--New York Review of Books

The other volumes in the series, The Age of Revolution, The Age of Capital, and The Age of Extremes are all available from Vintage Books.

Author

© Jerry Bauer
Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012) was educated in Vienna, Berlin, London, and Cambridge. From 1947-1982, Hobsbawm was Professor of Economic and Social History at Birbeck College, University of London. He also taught at Stanford, MIT, Cornell, and the New School for Social Research from 1982 to 2001. A Fellow of the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was the author of more than 20 books of history including The Age of Revolution, The Age of Capital, The Age of Empire, and The Age of Extremes. View titles by Eric Hobsbawm

Praise

"Its sheer power and eloquence will make this book a classic." —Neal Ascherson, Sunday Observer (London)

"It is Mr. Hobsbawm's achievement both to have captured the exuberance of an age, and to have shown how and why that world was coming to an end. . . . He not only captures the age of empire he also illuminates the course of the twentieth century." —Kennedy, The Economist (London)

"A virtuoso performance. . . . Few, if any, present practitioners of the historian's craft can equal. the astonishing range and dazzling erudition of Mr. Hobsbawm's scholarship." —David M. Kennedy, The New York Times Book Review

"A splendid answer to those critics who complain that academic historians no longer write readable prose. . . . The great strength of this book is the way in which what seems in so many ways a wholly vanished epoch is related to our situation today." —James Joll, The New York Review of Books

Other books in this series

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