The Age of Capital: 1848-1875

Eric Hobsbawm

Apr 2020 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Hugh Kermode

About this audiobook

In this book, Eric Hobsbawm chronicles the events and trends that led to the triumph of private enterprise and its exponents in the years between 1848 and 1875. Along with Hobsbawm's other volumes, this book constitutes an intellectual key to the origins of the world in which we now live. Although it pulses with great events-failed revolutions, catastrophic wars, and a global depression-The Age of Capital is most outstanding for its analysis of the trends that created the new order. With the sweep and sophistication that have made him one of our greatest historians, Hobsbawm identifies this epoch's winners and losers, its institutions, ideologies, science, and religion.

Ratings and reviews

Fantastic overview (synthesis? analysis? maybe all of these) of a time period quickly fading from our collective historical memory. Many lessons can be gleaned for the current period of growth triumphalism and the fading of revolutionary potential, but stay tuned for volume 3 when the real age of globalization and New Imperialism begins. Readers whose careers rely on ahistorical assertion and myth-making should avoid this book at all costs.

About the author

Born in 1917, Eric Hobsbawm was Emeritus Professor of history at Birbeck College, University of London, and Emeritus Universtiy Professor of politics and society at the New School for Social Research. His books include The Age of Capital, The Age of Empire, The Age of Extremes, and The Jazz Scene.