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The Age Of Revolution: 1789-1848

This magisterial volume follows the death of ancient traditions, the triumph of new classes, and the emergence of new technologies, sciences, and ideologies, with vast intellectual daring and aphoristic elegance. Part of Eric Hobsbawm's epic four-volume history of the modern world, along with The Age of Capitalism, The Age of Empire, and The Age of Extremes.

Paperback: 368 pages

Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vintage Books ed edition (November 26, 1996)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0679772537

ISBN-13: 978-0679772538

Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.8 x 8 inches

Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #20,811 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #2 in Books > History > Military > Napoleonic Wars #20 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > History > Europe #20 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > History > Military

(4.5 stars)In his preface, Hobsbawn explains: "The object of this book is not detailed narrative, but interpretation and what the French call haute vulgarisation. Its ideal reader is that theoretical construct, the intelligent and educated citizen, who is not merely curious about the past, but wishes to understand how and why the world has come to be what it is today and whither it is going. Hence it would be pedantic and uncalled-for to load the text with as heavy an apparatus of scholarship as it ought to carry for a more learned public. My notes therefore refer almost entirely to the sources of actual quotations and figures, or in some cases to the authority for statements which are particularly controversial or surprising."I quote Hobswan's preface in full because it seems to capture the great strengths and modest weaknesses of this book. First, the prose. It can be cumbersome, particularly when bearing the weight of unfamiliar names, places and "isms." But the complexity is necessary in my opinion. The author is trying to stuff sweeping movements, grand figures of history, and the captial "M" Modern revolution into 300 pages of declarative sentences without abridging the truth. That's hard work. And as readers, we are asked to do some hard work as well.But that brings up the great strength of Hobswan's work. He succeeds. Ideas like "Nationalism" and "Industrialism" become understandable in twenty pages or less. You see how the railroads were born and how they fueled speculation. How we all used to live in the country, isolated, living and dying in the same county, perhaps never to receive more than a letter (there were no newspapers, no mass media of any type) from the outside world.

In The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848, Eric Hobsbawm examines sixty pivotal years beginning with the construction of the first factory system in Lancashire and the French Revolution in 1789 and concluding with the publication of the Communist Manifesto in 1848. According to Hobsbawm, the period was marked by two watershed events, the twin upheavals of the British Industrial Revolution and the contemporaneous French Revolution. Described as "twin craters of a larger, regional volcano," Hobsbawm stresses the far-reaching societal impact of these revolutions beyond the borders of the two rival nations. The introduction of a bourgeois middle class within a capitalist industrial reorganization of social relations formed what Hobsbawm identifies as "the greatest transformation in human history" since Mesopotamia. Giving rise to explosive new capital and social opportunities, the volcano unleashed unforeseen destabilizing forces capable of collapsing the top-heavy liberal, capitalist expansion. According to Hobsbawm, the publication of the Communist Manifesto marked the beginning of a worldwide social critique and chain reaction, testifying to the pervasive influence, at once promising and tragic, of the dual revolution in Britain and France. Hobsbawm launches his discussion by first describing the agrarian/feudal world of 1780 and the preconditions that fostered the Industrial and French Revolutions. Britain was free of a feudal monarch, and private enterprise had been accepted in that nation for more than a century. Britain also had the natural resources and colonial empire necessary to provide the raw materials, primarily coal and cotton, to fuel a rapid industrial expansion.

The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848 Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 1789-1804: A Brief History with Documents (Bedford Cultural Editions Series) An Islandwide Struggle for Freedom: Revolution, Emancipation, and Reenslavement in Hispaniola, 1789-1809 Acts of Congress 1789: Includes the Constitution and the Bill of Rights Political Buttons, Book III 1789-1916: A Price Guide to Presidential Americana Way's Packet Directory 1848-1994: Passenger Steamboats of the Mississippi River System since the Advent of Photography in Mid-Continent America The Writings of David Thompson, Volume 2: The Travels, 1848 Version, and Associated Texts Seeds of Insurrection: Domination and Resistance on Western Cuban Plantations, 1808-1848 The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861 The 1848 Revolutions Army Blue: The Uniform of Uncle Sam's Regulars 1848-1873 (Schiffer Military History Book) The Mexican-American War, 1846-1848 (Men-At-Arms Series, 56) The Sober Revolution: Calling Time on Wine O'Clock (The Sober Revolution) In Nobody's Backyard: The Grenada Revolution in Its Own Words Vol. I: The Revolution at Home.(paper). Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China Regulating Code: Good Governance and Better Regulation in the Information Age (Information Revolution and Global Politics) Dr. Atkins' Age-Defying Diet Revolution The Real Meal Revolution: The Radical, Sustainable Approach to Healthy Eating (Age of Legends) How to Teach Your Baby to Be Physically Superb : Birth to Age Six (More Gentle Revolution) Regaining The Power Of Youth at Any Age: Startling New Evidence from the Doctor Who Brought Us Aerobics, Controlling Cholesterol and the Antioxidant Revolution