Emile Chabal on The Age of Hobsbawn
Thursday 1st October, 7.30pm
Topping & Company Booksellers of St Andrews, 7 Greyfriars Garden, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9HG
6.50pm
7.30pm
Emile Chabal on The Age of Hobsbawm
Join Emile Chabal, Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Edinburgh for an exploration of the life and times of one of the most prominent historians of the 20th century - Eric Hobsbawm.
Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012) was one of the foremost European intellectuals of the twentieth century. He published hundreds of articles on modern history and culture, and his books became canonical works and bestsellers on both sides of the Atlantic. His crystal-clear writing, vast erudition, and ability to make his Marxist analysis digestible to a wide audience brought him worldwide renown.
Yet Hobsbawm was no academic hermit. Through his globetrotting journalism, he was embedded in an extraordinary web of politicians, activists, and fellow intellectuals across Europe, South Asia, and the Americas, including Manmohan Singh, Che Guevara, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Fernand Braudel, E. P. Thompson, Arno Mayer, and Salvador Allende. Emile Chabal traces the origins of Hobsbawm's ideas and most famous writings by exploring his scholarly foundations, delving deep into the archives to uncover hidden links and unexpected conversations that shaped his pathbreaking work.
Going well beyond the Ages series of modern history books for which Hobsbawm is best known, Chabal offers the first substantial interpretation of Hobsbawm's entire body of writing. Indeed, The Age of Hobsbawm is also a trove of unique insights into the generations of Marxist writers with whom Hobsbawm was in conversation-authors whose work continues to shape political debates globally.
Emile Chabal is Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Edinburgh. He has authored and edited several books, including A Divided Republic: Nation, State, and Citizenship in Contemporary France and States of Ignorance: Governing Irregular Migrants in Western Europe. His writing has appeared in such publications as Foreign Policy, The Hindu, the Times Literary Supplement, Jacobin, and Liberation.