Ben Waber reviewed The Age of Capital by Eric Hobsbawm
An Informative But Problematic History
3 stars
This is Hobsbawm's follow up to his book on the previous 50 years, and it's structured quite similarly and has similar benefits and flaws. The chapters that focus on the economy are focused and informative, and are probably the least problematic parts of the book. However, the rest of the book is a fairly by-the-numbers review of European history in this time period, with the huge caveat that Hobsbawm is more openly racist about non-Western cultures here. If you drank every time he calls a people/country "backwards," "savage," or the like you'd be drunk by the end of the first chapter.
This is Hobsbawm's follow up to his book on the previous 50 years, and it's structured quite similarly and has similar benefits and flaws. The chapters that focus on the economy are focused and informative, and are probably the least problematic parts of the book. However, the rest of the book is a fairly by-the-numbers review of European history in this time period, with the huge caveat that Hobsbawm is more openly racist about non-Western cultures here. If you drank every time he calls a people/country "backwards," "savage," or the like you'd be drunk by the end of the first chapter.