What do you think?
Rate this book
On Empire: America, War, and Global Supremacy
In there four incisive and keenly perceptive essays, one of out most celebrated and respected historians of modern Europe looks at the world situation and some of the major political problems confronting us at the start of the third millennium.
With his usual measured and brilliant historical perspective, Eric Hobsbawm traces the rise of American hegemony in the twenty-first century. He examines the state of steadily increasing world disorder in the context of rapidly growing inequalities created by rampant free-market globalization. He makes clear that there is no longer a plural power system of states whose relations are governed by common laws--including those for the conduct of war. He scrutinizes America's policies, particularly its use of the threat of terrorism as an excuse for unilateral deployment of its global power. Finally, he discusses the ways in which the current American hegemony differs from the defunct British Empire in its inception, its ideology, and its effects on nations and individuals.
Hobsbawm is particularly astute in assessing the United States' assertion of world hegemony, its denunciation of formerly accepted international conventions, and its launching of wars of aggression when it sees fit. Aside from the naivete and failure that have surrounded most of these imperial campaigns, Hobsbawm points out that foreign values and institutions--including those associated with a democratic government--can rarely be imposed on countries such as Iraq by outside forces unless the conditions exist that make them acceptable and readily adaptable.
Timely and accessible, On Empire is a commanding work of history that should be read by anyone who wants some understanding of the turbulent times in which we live.
With his usual measured and brilliant historical perspective, Eric Hobsbawm traces the rise of American hegemony in the twenty-first century. He examines the state of steadily increasing world disorder in the context of rapidly growing inequalities created by rampant free-market globalization. He makes clear that there is no longer a plural power system of states whose relations are governed by common laws--including those for the conduct of war. He scrutinizes America's policies, particularly its use of the threat of terrorism as an excuse for unilateral deployment of its global power. Finally, he discusses the ways in which the current American hegemony differs from the defunct British Empire in its inception, its ideology, and its effects on nations and individuals.
Hobsbawm is particularly astute in assessing the United States' assertion of world hegemony, its denunciation of formerly accepted international conventions, and its launching of wars of aggression when it sees fit. Aside from the naivete and failure that have surrounded most of these imperial campaigns, Hobsbawm points out that foreign values and institutions--including those associated with a democratic government--can rarely be imposed on countries such as Iraq by outside forces unless the conditions exist that make them acceptable and readily adaptable.
Timely and accessible, On Empire is a commanding work of history that should be read by anyone who wants some understanding of the turbulent times in which we live.
128 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
About the author
Eric J. Hobsbawm
199 books1,758 followersEric John Ernest Hobsbawm was a British historian of the rise of industrial capitalism, socialism and nationalism. His best-known works include his tetralogy about what he called the "long 19th century" (The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848, The Age of Capital: 1848–1875 and The Age of Empire: 1875–1914) and the "short 20th century" (The Age of Extremes), and an edited volume that introduced the influential idea of "invented traditions". A life-long Marxist, his socio-political convictions influenced the character of his work.
Hobsbawm was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and spent his childhood mainly in Vienna and Berlin. Following the death of his parents and the rise to power of Adolf Hitler, Hobsbawm moved to London with his adoptive family. After serving in the Second World War, he obtained his PhD in history at the University of Cambridge. In 1998, he was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour. He was president of Birkbeck, University of London, from 2002 until his death. In 2003, he received the Balzan Prize for European History since 1900, "for his brilliant analysis of the troubled history of 20th century Europe and for his ability to combine in-depth historical research with great literary talent."
Hobsbawm was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and spent his childhood mainly in Vienna and Berlin. Following the death of his parents and the rise to power of Adolf Hitler, Hobsbawm moved to London with his adoptive family. After serving in the Second World War, he obtained his PhD in history at the University of Cambridge. In 1998, he was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour. He was president of Birkbeck, University of London, from 2002 until his death. In 2003, he received the Balzan Prize for European History since 1900, "for his brilliant analysis of the troubled history of 20th century Europe and for his ability to combine in-depth historical research with great literary talent."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
September 5, 2023
Pretty great collection of thoughts by Hobsbawm, who is a pretty smart feller all around
Intro
- There are 3 important features of globalization Hobsbawm thinks are worth mentioning:
1. Free-market globalization/neoliberal capitalism has dramatically increased inequalities both within states and internationally. This is a massive cause of social/political tension in the modern world
2. Those who benefit the least from unrestrained mobility of goods/labor/capital feel its impacts the most (hence the massively diverging views on the benefits of globalization). Those who are most sheltered from its negative effects = entrepreneurs who can outsource their costs to countries of cheap labor, high-tech professionals/ members of the so-called “creative class”, and graduates of higher education who can leverage that education for work in high-income markets. Those least sheltered from its negative effects = everyone else who sells their labor power for wages
3. Political/cultural impacts from globalization are large and sometimes disproportionate, leading to things like immigration becoming the dominant social issues of the imperialist core despite the fact that something like less than 3% of people on Earth live outside the country they were born. Political resistance, though unlikely to revive formal protectionist policies, is likely to slow down the progress of free-market globalization.
Essay #1
- The 2 world wars (AKA the second 30 years war) broke up most empires, which is why today we have more nation states than ever before in history (the number of nations states has quadrupled since 1912). WW1 broke up the Ottoman empire and stripped Germany of its colonies. WW2 further neutered any future imperial ambitions of Germany and broke up the great imperial powers of Japan, France, and the British empire, as well as finally put to rest the lesser imperialist powers of the Dutch, the Spanish, the Belgian, and the Portuguese empires.
-Today only the United States remains as an empire, but it is fundamentally different from those of the past. Past empires conquered through military violence and terror (U.S. “shock and awe” baby) but only kept that power through making alliances with local ruling class elites while dividing and conquering their subjects by exploiting any form of disunity possible. While these tactics are still widely used by America, a third tactic, that of legitimating imperial domination through the supposed benefits of “westernization”, no longer exists in any material capacity. In the past, nations with weak states could be convinced that imperialist domination was modernizing them into a “modern western civilization”, and as local elites were enriched by this process there would be little reason for them to doubt this narrative or stop themelves from propagating it. Today, the globalization of the industrial economy has made modernization international. For example, South Korea has little to learn from the United States in terms of technological advances when the U.S. imports its software experts from India and exports its office work to Sri Lanka.
- The ruling classes in America’s proxy states today cannot be relied on as effectively as they could in previous epochs of informal empires. This is because the Cold War led to a global proliferation in weapons and high tech military equipment that is now used by various underground/terrorist/revolutionary groups to battle states more effectively than ever before in history.
Essay #2
- Warfare and conflicts entered a new stage of brutality in the 20th century, which saw an estimated 180+ million deaths due to warfare. Today the costs of warfare are increasingly paid for by civilians. This shift began between WW1 and WW2; only 5% of those who died in World War I were civilians; in World War II the figure increased to 66%. It is generally estimated that 80 to 90% of those maimed/killed/turned refugee by war today are civilians.
- Even as the total number of wars between states has decreased since the 1960s, the effects of armed conflict have grown exponentially. For example, at the end of 2004 it was estimated that there were almost forty million refugees of war outside and increasingly inside their own countries, which is comparable to the number of “displaced persons” in the aftermath of World War I. While military conflicts used to distinguish between combatant and civilian, this line has been blurred into non-existence in the modern world.
-Capitalism still relies on the nation state to provide the order necessary for maximized capital accumulation. However, today many nation states lack the total monopoly of violence they once had. The world is increasingly being divided into states that can relatively efficiently administer control over their citizens/territories effectively, and those with weak/corrupt/non-existent central governments who cannot. The latter zones produce the bloodiest of struggles and conflicts.
Essay #3
- Hobsbawm points out 4 aspects of life that have been revolutionized by the speed of communication/transportation made possible through globalization and the advancement of C.I.T.
1. There is almost no peasantry left in the developed world (ex: less than 2% of the U.S. population, less than 4% for every country in the OECD), and there are now no countries remaining anywhere where at least half of their population are peasants
2. We are now an urban species. In 1900, only 16% of the world’s population lived in towns. In 1950 it had risen to just under 26%; at the time Hobsbawm was writing it was just under half at 48%. Urbanization in the developed states no longer takes the form of rural peasant to city migration; instead as cities expand outward suburbanization grows
3. The world has experienced a growth in general literacy, but the anglo-imperialist core (America, Europe,Australia) make up the majority of the world’s population who continue studying after their secondary education. Higher education is still monopolized by the anglo-world.
4. In general women have gained more educational rights across the world since the 1960s, in which they have been able to catch up to or surpass men in terms of education. This has been most dramatic in the Western world
- Since the French Revolution people stopped seeing themselves as ‘subjects’ and became ‘citizens’. To these citizens, the state has been seen as a force legitimated by their will through mass ceremonial acts such as habitual voting. The phase of human development which saw the people as loyal to the state (which they believed represented their collective will) ended with the death of the welfare state in the 1970s. Think about all the people willing to die for “God and country” in the two world wars compared to those who resisted mass conscription for the Vietnam war. Today the multinational corporation is attempting to exist outside of the state structure in the sense that they are successfully resisting being bound by the laws/taxations of any singular state. With the death of the welfare state, the proliferation of multinational corporations who still rely on nation states for capital accumulation, and the expansion of military grade weaponry accumulated by non-state actors across the globe thanks to the Cold War, we now live in a world where the nation state is under a crisis of legitimation and must act to both serve/benefit from the process of globalized capital flows while also remaining legitimate in the eyes of its citizens.
- Hobsbawm writes towards the end of this essay: “Frankly, I can’t make sense of what has happened in the United States since 9/11 that enabled a group of political crazies to realize long-held plans for an unaccompanied solo performance of world supremacy. I believe it indicates a growing crisis within American society, which finds expression in the most profound political and cultural division within that country since the Civil War, and a sharp geographical division between the globalized economy of the two seaboards, and the vast resentful hinterland, the culturally open big cities and the rest of the country. Today a radical right-wing regime seeks to mobilize “true Americans” against some evil outside force and against a world that does not recognize the uniqueness, the superiority, the manifest destiny of America.”
Here’s my attempt at an explanation: the conservative revolution in America brought to power the most reactionary elements in the nation as long as their interests (stripping the government of power and lowering their own personal taxes) coincided with big business’. Once in power these conservatives successfully passed austerity measures which deregulated the market, stripped back welfare, and privatized most state functions. This was a tragedy for 90% of Americans. However, conservative support for this project was kept together through a shared hatred of communism/the USSR. Once the USSR collapsed there was no external socialist threat, and all internal left wing threats had long been destroyed or incapacitated. On top of that, neoliberalization had successfully commodified political action by supporting a cosmopolitan identity politics emanating out of metropolises like New York City and San Francisco. Not only had conservatives lost their biggest enemy, the USSR, they also lost the culture war. Their institutions and ideologies were no longer needed, but their minds were still wracked by the nightmarish traditions of dead generations. The communism that they had been fighting was now transmuted onto liberalism; they needed an enemy to fight, to dissipate their rage brought on by the inherent hyper-alienation of neoliberal society into. Living in the atomized suburbs, brainwashed by the most effective and confusing form of communication ever devised (television and then the internet) which broke up any narratives of history they had hitherto formed, and cut off from long disbanded communal institutions, the conservative movement was essentially an insane death-cult that still clung to political power. Like the CIA in the 1950s-60s who believed every national liberation movement was communist, or the neoconservative wing (team B) of the CIA headed by Sovietologist Richard Pipes, who believed the Soviets were undoubtedly hiding advanced technologies beyond our comprehension, a sort of “institutional psychosis” had taken hold of the Republican Party. Once you sniff your own farts long enough you’ll eventually mistake them for air; now liberalism, not just communism, was the most evil thing in existence. This explains why, after the dissolution of the USSR, the Republican Party became so unwilling to compromise with the Democrats (exemplified in one way by Newt Gingrich’s ruthless takeover of the House of Representatives, as well as by their hatred of Bill Clinton who was ostensibly one of them). Without a left to discipline the conservatives into making tactical compromises with the Democrats, they became totally unwilling to concede even an inch.
Intro
- There are 3 important features of globalization Hobsbawm thinks are worth mentioning:
1. Free-market globalization/neoliberal capitalism has dramatically increased inequalities both within states and internationally. This is a massive cause of social/political tension in the modern world
2. Those who benefit the least from unrestrained mobility of goods/labor/capital feel its impacts the most (hence the massively diverging views on the benefits of globalization). Those who are most sheltered from its negative effects = entrepreneurs who can outsource their costs to countries of cheap labor, high-tech professionals/ members of the so-called “creative class”, and graduates of higher education who can leverage that education for work in high-income markets. Those least sheltered from its negative effects = everyone else who sells their labor power for wages
3. Political/cultural impacts from globalization are large and sometimes disproportionate, leading to things like immigration becoming the dominant social issues of the imperialist core despite the fact that something like less than 3% of people on Earth live outside the country they were born. Political resistance, though unlikely to revive formal protectionist policies, is likely to slow down the progress of free-market globalization.
Essay #1
- The 2 world wars (AKA the second 30 years war) broke up most empires, which is why today we have more nation states than ever before in history (the number of nations states has quadrupled since 1912). WW1 broke up the Ottoman empire and stripped Germany of its colonies. WW2 further neutered any future imperial ambitions of Germany and broke up the great imperial powers of Japan, France, and the British empire, as well as finally put to rest the lesser imperialist powers of the Dutch, the Spanish, the Belgian, and the Portuguese empires.
-Today only the United States remains as an empire, but it is fundamentally different from those of the past. Past empires conquered through military violence and terror (U.S. “shock and awe” baby) but only kept that power through making alliances with local ruling class elites while dividing and conquering their subjects by exploiting any form of disunity possible. While these tactics are still widely used by America, a third tactic, that of legitimating imperial domination through the supposed benefits of “westernization”, no longer exists in any material capacity. In the past, nations with weak states could be convinced that imperialist domination was modernizing them into a “modern western civilization”, and as local elites were enriched by this process there would be little reason for them to doubt this narrative or stop themelves from propagating it. Today, the globalization of the industrial economy has made modernization international. For example, South Korea has little to learn from the United States in terms of technological advances when the U.S. imports its software experts from India and exports its office work to Sri Lanka.
- The ruling classes in America’s proxy states today cannot be relied on as effectively as they could in previous epochs of informal empires. This is because the Cold War led to a global proliferation in weapons and high tech military equipment that is now used by various underground/terrorist/revolutionary groups to battle states more effectively than ever before in history.
Essay #2
- Warfare and conflicts entered a new stage of brutality in the 20th century, which saw an estimated 180+ million deaths due to warfare. Today the costs of warfare are increasingly paid for by civilians. This shift began between WW1 and WW2; only 5% of those who died in World War I were civilians; in World War II the figure increased to 66%. It is generally estimated that 80 to 90% of those maimed/killed/turned refugee by war today are civilians.
- Even as the total number of wars between states has decreased since the 1960s, the effects of armed conflict have grown exponentially. For example, at the end of 2004 it was estimated that there were almost forty million refugees of war outside and increasingly inside their own countries, which is comparable to the number of “displaced persons” in the aftermath of World War I. While military conflicts used to distinguish between combatant and civilian, this line has been blurred into non-existence in the modern world.
-Capitalism still relies on the nation state to provide the order necessary for maximized capital accumulation. However, today many nation states lack the total monopoly of violence they once had. The world is increasingly being divided into states that can relatively efficiently administer control over their citizens/territories effectively, and those with weak/corrupt/non-existent central governments who cannot. The latter zones produce the bloodiest of struggles and conflicts.
Essay #3
- Hobsbawm points out 4 aspects of life that have been revolutionized by the speed of communication/transportation made possible through globalization and the advancement of C.I.T.
1. There is almost no peasantry left in the developed world (ex: less than 2% of the U.S. population, less than 4% for every country in the OECD), and there are now no countries remaining anywhere where at least half of their population are peasants
2. We are now an urban species. In 1900, only 16% of the world’s population lived in towns. In 1950 it had risen to just under 26%; at the time Hobsbawm was writing it was just under half at 48%. Urbanization in the developed states no longer takes the form of rural peasant to city migration; instead as cities expand outward suburbanization grows
3. The world has experienced a growth in general literacy, but the anglo-imperialist core (America, Europe,Australia) make up the majority of the world’s population who continue studying after their secondary education. Higher education is still monopolized by the anglo-world.
4. In general women have gained more educational rights across the world since the 1960s, in which they have been able to catch up to or surpass men in terms of education. This has been most dramatic in the Western world
- Since the French Revolution people stopped seeing themselves as ‘subjects’ and became ‘citizens’. To these citizens, the state has been seen as a force legitimated by their will through mass ceremonial acts such as habitual voting. The phase of human development which saw the people as loyal to the state (which they believed represented their collective will) ended with the death of the welfare state in the 1970s. Think about all the people willing to die for “God and country” in the two world wars compared to those who resisted mass conscription for the Vietnam war. Today the multinational corporation is attempting to exist outside of the state structure in the sense that they are successfully resisting being bound by the laws/taxations of any singular state. With the death of the welfare state, the proliferation of multinational corporations who still rely on nation states for capital accumulation, and the expansion of military grade weaponry accumulated by non-state actors across the globe thanks to the Cold War, we now live in a world where the nation state is under a crisis of legitimation and must act to both serve/benefit from the process of globalized capital flows while also remaining legitimate in the eyes of its citizens.
- Hobsbawm writes towards the end of this essay: “Frankly, I can’t make sense of what has happened in the United States since 9/11 that enabled a group of political crazies to realize long-held plans for an unaccompanied solo performance of world supremacy. I believe it indicates a growing crisis within American society, which finds expression in the most profound political and cultural division within that country since the Civil War, and a sharp geographical division between the globalized economy of the two seaboards, and the vast resentful hinterland, the culturally open big cities and the rest of the country. Today a radical right-wing regime seeks to mobilize “true Americans” against some evil outside force and against a world that does not recognize the uniqueness, the superiority, the manifest destiny of America.”
Here’s my attempt at an explanation: the conservative revolution in America brought to power the most reactionary elements in the nation as long as their interests (stripping the government of power and lowering their own personal taxes) coincided with big business’. Once in power these conservatives successfully passed austerity measures which deregulated the market, stripped back welfare, and privatized most state functions. This was a tragedy for 90% of Americans. However, conservative support for this project was kept together through a shared hatred of communism/the USSR. Once the USSR collapsed there was no external socialist threat, and all internal left wing threats had long been destroyed or incapacitated. On top of that, neoliberalization had successfully commodified political action by supporting a cosmopolitan identity politics emanating out of metropolises like New York City and San Francisco. Not only had conservatives lost their biggest enemy, the USSR, they also lost the culture war. Their institutions and ideologies were no longer needed, but their minds were still wracked by the nightmarish traditions of dead generations. The communism that they had been fighting was now transmuted onto liberalism; they needed an enemy to fight, to dissipate their rage brought on by the inherent hyper-alienation of neoliberal society into. Living in the atomized suburbs, brainwashed by the most effective and confusing form of communication ever devised (television and then the internet) which broke up any narratives of history they had hitherto formed, and cut off from long disbanded communal institutions, the conservative movement was essentially an insane death-cult that still clung to political power. Like the CIA in the 1950s-60s who believed every national liberation movement was communist, or the neoconservative wing (team B) of the CIA headed by Sovietologist Richard Pipes, who believed the Soviets were undoubtedly hiding advanced technologies beyond our comprehension, a sort of “institutional psychosis” had taken hold of the Republican Party. Once you sniff your own farts long enough you’ll eventually mistake them for air; now liberalism, not just communism, was the most evil thing in existence. This explains why, after the dissolution of the USSR, the Republican Party became so unwilling to compromise with the Democrats (exemplified in one way by Newt Gingrich’s ruthless takeover of the House of Representatives, as well as by their hatred of Bill Clinton who was ostensibly one of them). Without a left to discipline the conservatives into making tactical compromises with the Democrats, they became totally unwilling to concede even an inch.
August 14, 2021
I really like Hobsbawm's bird's-eye view of contemporary history; looking at longue durée structural factors such as urbanization, the global expansion of education, and the liberation of women to make sense of the world. Reading this in August 2021, at the time of the horrifying forward march of the Taliban throughout Afghanistan, Hobsbawm's insights in regards to the "general crisis of state power and state legitimacy" and the inability of a handful of foreigners to rule millions of people abroad seem as pertinent as ever. I just wish this book was longer and delved deeper into the subject at hand.
July 16, 2011
Eric Hobsbawm, one of the most prolific modern historians alive today, delivers more a series of provocative musings and observations than a unified whole in his most recent book, On Empire. The common theme throughout is the idea of empire and its relationship, if any, to stability in the international system. When empire is not the subject, war, peace, and the transformation of the international state system in the 20th century are. On the first subject, I find this book a useful summary of leftist thinking on empire, but not a novel one: there was once an age of empire, these entities did not generate peace between empires but rather continued to exist because of coincidental peace, and the age of empire that the United States has attempted to resurrect in its unipolar moment since the end of the Cold War is unlikely to succeed. As a staunch communist and social historian, Hobsbawm cannot resist the point that empires through history have rarely even had peace within their borders, routinely engaging in military operations on their frontiers and against natives in their homeland.
However, as a commentary on the international state system and disorder over the last 100 years, this book is a triumph. Partly, this is because of Hobsbawm's characteristic clarity. But it is also for his bluntness. By merely stating basic truths without acclaim, he underscores so much of the calamity of the 20th century, as well as the gravity of the situation we find ourselves in at present. He writes of "the return of mass human catastrophe, up to and including the wholesale expulsion of peoples and genocide" after the end of the Cold War. Of the 20th century, he writes "Taken as having begun in 1914, it was a century of almost unbroken war." Still, I think his most fascinating contributions here are his emphasis on intra-state conflict and the "crisis of the sovereign nation-state" as the greatest threats to international order. Well, that and unbridled American (and Western) neo-imperialist interventionism, of course! Lest we forget that the author is one of the few remaining card-carrying communists left in the Western world.
Hobsbawm occasionally devolves into political diatribe, as in his comment "Frankly, I can't make sense of what has happened in the United States since 9/11 that has enabled a group of political crazies to realize the long-held plans for an unaccompanied solo performance of world supremacy." Melodramatic, perhaps, but it's more amusing chatter than a serious flaw in the work. Overall, a short, fun, and interesting read. Three cheers to Professor Hobsbawm for still thinking (mostly) intelligent thoughts at the tender age of 91!
However, as a commentary on the international state system and disorder over the last 100 years, this book is a triumph. Partly, this is because of Hobsbawm's characteristic clarity. But it is also for his bluntness. By merely stating basic truths without acclaim, he underscores so much of the calamity of the 20th century, as well as the gravity of the situation we find ourselves in at present. He writes of "the return of mass human catastrophe, up to and including the wholesale expulsion of peoples and genocide" after the end of the Cold War. Of the 20th century, he writes "Taken as having begun in 1914, it was a century of almost unbroken war." Still, I think his most fascinating contributions here are his emphasis on intra-state conflict and the "crisis of the sovereign nation-state" as the greatest threats to international order. Well, that and unbridled American (and Western) neo-imperialist interventionism, of course! Lest we forget that the author is one of the few remaining card-carrying communists left in the Western world.
Hobsbawm occasionally devolves into political diatribe, as in his comment "Frankly, I can't make sense of what has happened in the United States since 9/11 that has enabled a group of political crazies to realize the long-held plans for an unaccompanied solo performance of world supremacy." Melodramatic, perhaps, but it's more amusing chatter than a serious flaw in the work. Overall, a short, fun, and interesting read. Three cheers to Professor Hobsbawm for still thinking (mostly) intelligent thoughts at the tender age of 91!
July 5, 2021
À quel point les conflits ont changé depuis le début du 20e siècle notamment avec la disparition du clivage civil/militaire, la montée en puissance américaine et l'adaptabilité de l'empire britannique grâce à sa puissance dans le monde économique notamment dans le domaine des échanges sont tous des sujets traités bien que trop partiellement à mon sens. Civilinization of war de A. Barros traite de façon plus complète des mutations qui affectent les conflits armés depuis plus d'un siècle et the Rise and Fall of the Empire the P. Kennedy traite avec minutie des vecteurs nécessaires à l'émergence et à la longévité des grands empires
June 10, 2012
This is a very slight volume, both in size and content. Hobsbawm's observations here are for the most part blindingly obvious. He gives a short account why the empires of the past are no longer workable, and how America's hegemony differs from Britain's. He asks, but offers little guidance to help answer, the question of what will fill the void of the relative decline of American power. But by posing this question, H perhaps does a service by inspiring readers to come up with their own answers.
December 21, 2011
a short collection of essays drawing comparisons between the American and British empires, with insightful observations for the casual reader. this short collection, however, is largely outdated, and hobsbawm's insistence of overstating American and English power, and ignoring the impact of other empires and colonialism seems out of sync with current analysis. but, for a short introduction, this collection could be quite useful.
December 16, 2008
This is a small collection of recent essays. His comparison of British and American empires is useful. But "Age of Extremes" and "Age of Revolution" are the best non academic histories you will find anywhere. Eric, may you live forever. ("Interesting Times," his autobiography, is also good, esp his account of how 1956 felt for Western communists.)
December 23, 2008
A short collection of essays focused on why American imperialism, particularly in Iraq, cannot be successful. The highlight of the book is the last essay, comparing the British and American Empires. A useful introduction and thought-provoking examination.
August 9, 2019
This quick overview of empire at the dawn of the 21st century is a quick read without the depth of Hobsbawm's other works. Of course, these are lectures and articles, and not really a proper book like Hobsbawm's "On the edge of a new century," which raises a lot more issues, and is still a relatively nice read. Hobsbawm thinks the American attempt to secure its global position through force rather than softer means and rather than accepting a diminished position is doomed, foolish, and irrational, but I would rather have seen a more detailed discussion of the American imperial project, its specific failures, and why its proponents thought they could succeed. Instead, Hobsbawm focuses at a very general level on the problems that states have maintaining order even when the local population is not hostile, and concludes that the age of empire has passed, but that America's leadership has not realized this yet. Still, the book was worthwhile.
January 27, 2025
Not bad, kinda repetitive but good overview
August 24, 2022
As other reviewers note, this is a very slight collection of essays focusing on a comparison of the US and British empires. As such, it is not really the best introduction to Hobsbawn's thought.
August 10, 2016
This book should be called '' Why I hate America ''. I'm not a fan of the modern days America, but I can explain to you why with concrete elements and numerical examples. This book is more like a short (60 pages, come on) rambling about why America is so bad, imperialistic and declining. Sure, some of the arguments make sense, but you can't just throw some generalities and expect the reader to believe your point of view. Nowhere is the author talking about the concept of soft and hard power, balance of trade, reconstruction of the political system post-European concert, etc. The author is surely smart and knowledgeable but this short book, which I understand is a collection of speeches and short essays, is way short of being good or informative.
June 4, 2015
This little book will give you a better understanding of the current situation of the United States. Where the world is, and where it is headed than four years worth of college courses on the topic. Eric Hobsbawm is the preeminent historian of the twentieth century, and he does not disappoint. His prose is masterful, his critique, devastating. Read it! I cannot recommend it highly enough.
January 1, 2010
A short book by a leftist historian on how empire still shapes war making in the 21st century and how the 20th century has not taught us anything about peace or how to rule. There is also a very interesting chapter on how America's empire differs from the 19th century British one.
August 10, 2010
This short collection of essays attempts to explain how and why war has changed shape in the past one hundred years. Focusing on the manner in which the U.S. goes about "war," Hobsbawm parses through U.S. hegemony and foreign policy in the past, present and future.
November 18, 2015
A short collection of essays dealing primarily with the difference society has undergone in the last century. The last essay, where Prof. Hobsbawm argues that it is wrong to compare the 19th century British empire to the 21st century American one , is exceptionally arresting.
June 8, 2008
Hobsbawm is preaching to the choir as far as the topic goes but the writing is stilted and preposition heavy, very tough to get through.
August 22, 2008
A loaf of cliche without any leavening of insight.
August 24, 2009
Interesting assessment on the limits of global hegemony in the 21st century.
August 7, 2014
very good read
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews