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From International Socialism, No.12, Spring 1963, p.32.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The Age of Revolution
E.J. Hobsbawm
Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 50s.
The object of this book says Dr Hobsbawm, is not detailed narrative, but interpretation. Such an approach was long overdue, as the period dealt with (1789-1848) has been the subject of innumerable pieces of documentation. Hobsbawm’s main theme is the ‘dual revolution’, comprising the French Revolution and the British Industrial Revolution. His method of analysis is essentially the same as the flexible Marxist one that he applied so successfully in his study of embryonic working class movements (Primitive Rebels). This enables him to present the turbulent years of rapid capitalist industrialization in a coherent way that is a vast improvement on the more typical method of presentation, i.e. piecemeal descriptions of events that are often presumed to be discrete occurrences unrelated in any dynamic fashion to each other. It is impossible to do justice to this work in the space of a short review and it would be foolish and unjust to make the attempt. Therefore only a few general comments are appropriate. One of the merits of Hobsbawm’s analysis is his judgement that the wars of 1793-1815 ‘clearly more than paid for themselves’ as far as the rising British entrepreneurial class was concerned, insofar as Britain eliminated her nearest industrial competitor and established thereby an economic primacy in the world for another two generations. This finding leads onto a good discussion of the increase in middle class power and influence up to 1848. The second half of the book deals with the results of war and industrialization, and here in a more interpretative analysis than in Primitive Rebels Hobsbawm ranges aver the wide variety of working class protest movements, reiterating the needed warning against viewing the labour movement of the mid-nineteenth century as a ‘proletarian’ movement. It has been to Hobsbawm’s credit that he has constantly stressed the significance of the role of religion in the development of working class consciousness. The trite invocation of the ‘opiate thesis’ has never done justice to the importance of some of the non-Wesleyan Methodist movements both in weaning members of the working class away from middle class religious influence and in nurturing solidarity. There are many other illuminating things in this book, which is recommended to all who are not content with the mere listing of historical facts.
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