British historian Hobsbawm dies

This video from Britain says about itself:

Professor Eric Hobsbawm is interviewed on the so called ‘responsible capitalism.’

Recorded from BBC Newsnight, 19 January 2012.

From daily The Guardian in Britain:

Eric Hobsbawm dies, aged 95

Lifelong Marxist, whose work influenced generations of historians and politicians, dies after long illness

Esther Addley

Monday 1 October 2012 13.55 BST

Eric Hobsbawm, one of the leading historians of the 20th century, has died, his family said on Monday.

Hobsbawm, a lifelong Marxist whose work influenced generations of historians and politicians, died in the early hours of Monday morning at the Royal Free Hospital in London after a long illness, his daughter Julia said. He was 95.

Hobsbawm’s four-volume history of the 19th and 20th centuries, spanning European history from the French revolution to the fall of the USSR, is acknowledged as among the defining works on the period.

Fellow historian Niall Ferguson called the quartet, from The Age of Revolution to 1994’s The Age of Extremes, “the best starting point I know for anyone who wishes to begin studying modern history”.

Niall Ferguson is a Conservative, supporting Mitt Romney’s candidacy in the USA.

Hobsbawm was dubbed “Neil Kinnock‘s guru” in the early 1990s, after criticising the Labour party for failing to keep step with social changes, and was regarded as influential in the birth of New Labour, though he later expressed disappointment with the government of Tony Blair.

Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, described Hobsbawm as “an extraordinary historian, a man passionate about his politics and a great friend of my family”.

He said: “His historical works brought hundreds of years of British history to hundreds of thousands of people. He brought history out of the ivory tower and into people’s lives.” …

Hobsbawm was born into a Jewish family in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1917, and grew up in Vienna and Berlin, moving to London with his family in 1933, the year that Hitler came to power in Germany. He studied at Marylebone grammar school and King’s College, Cambridge, and became a lecturer at Birkbeck University in 1947, the beginning of a lifelong association that culminated in his becoming the university’s president.

He became a fellow of the British Academy in 1978 and was awarded the companion of honour in 1998.

He is survived by his wife, Marlene, his daughter, Julia, and sons Andy and Joseph, and by seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Related articles

• Eric Hobsbawm dies, aged 95 (guardian.co.uk)
• Eric Hobsbawm dies aged 95 (telegraph.co.uk)
• In Memoriam: Eric Hobsbawm (lsolum.typepad.com)
• Eric Hobsbawm: an appreciation (guardian.co.uk)
• Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012) (socialistworker.co.uk)