Event overview
Professor John Breuilly (LSE) will argue that revolution and nationalism were major concerns of Eric Hobsbawm over the course of a long life (1917-2012). His concerns were those of a politically committed communist, a public intellectual and a professional historian.This talk considers the changing and sometimes contradictory ways Hobsbawm interpreted revolution, nationalism and their relationships with each other as these different roles sometimes combined, sometimes remained distinct and sometimes clashed. It also traces how Hobsbawm's views on these shifted as both he and the world changed.
Professor Breuilly begins with the biographical and political aspects of Hobsbawm's views about revolution and nationalism and their relationships to each other. Then he turns to Hobsbawm's treatment of these matters in his historical writings. Both sections are roughly divided into three periods: before and after 1945 and from the mid-1980s. The first period was dominated by the struggle against fascism, in particular in the Third Reich and Hobsbawm's political activity as first a German and then a British communist. The second period was shaped by academic success and the Cold War. The final period witnessed the peak of Hobsbawm's influence as a public intellectual, the final crisis and collapse of the Soviet Union and the re-emergence of nationalism as a major political force. In a concluding section Professor Breuilly tries to draw together the biographical, political and professional aspects of Hobsbawm's views on how revolution and nationalism relate to each other and sees if one can discern an overall pattern in these.
John Breuilly is Professor of Nationalism and Ethnicity at the London School of Economics. Publications include 'Nationalism and the State' (2nd ed. 1993), 'Austria, Prussia and the Making of Modern Germany, 1806-1971' (2011) and he has edited 'The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism' (2013). He is currently writing a global history of nationalism.
The photograph shows a young Eric Hobsbawm observing a victory parade of the French Popular Front in Paris in 1936. Hobsbawm is on the last on the right, perched on the flat-bed lorry.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 19 Mar 2014 | 5:00pm - 7:00pm |
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