Eric Hobsbawm

Eric Hobsbawm, the author of The Invention of Tradition, is an important British Marxist historian. Hobsbawm spent most of his career as a lecturer in history at Birkbeck College and the University of London between 1959 and 1982. Of significance, is Hobsbawm's past activism as a communist in Britain. Hobsbawm's doctoral work concerned the history of the British Fabian society, a democratic communist advocacy organization and was a member of the Association of Socialist Pupils, becoming a member of the Communist party in 1936 and consistently defending the Soviet Union from any and all criticism until its collapse. Thus, his commitment to a Marxist philosophy was unyielding.

Hobsbawm is known for his Marxist approach to history which emphasizes class analysis, or the understanding of history as a struggle between distinct economic classes. Hobsbawm is known for his theory of the 'dual revolution' that holds that the primary historical events that...