History, Culture and Ethnography: Jack Goody, Clifford Geertz and Philippe Descola is a collection of interviews that is being published as a book for the first time. These interviews have been conducted by one of England's leading social anthropologists and historians, Professor Alan Macfarlane. Filmed over a period of several years, the three conversations in this volume are part of the series Creative Lives and Works. These transcriptions form a part of a larger set of interviews that cut across various disciplines, from the social sciences and the sciences to the performing and visual arts. The current volume is on three of the world's most eminent social and cultural anthropologists. These conversations focus primarily on fieldwork experience in Ghana, Indonesia and Amazonia and how new dimensions and interpretations were added to the discipline of sociology and social anthropology. While Jack Goody and Clifford Geertz gave a new turn and depth to the disciple through their experiences in West Africa and Indonesia, Philippe Descola, who belongs to the succeeding generation of anthropologists, added human-nature interactions into the mix. This book talks about both overcoming and understanding the importance of taking into account linguistic, historical, economic and cultural elements in the study of these societies through engaging conversations and occasional anecdotes. Immensely riveting as conversations, this collection gives one a flavour of the many different societies and cultures in far-flung reaches of the world encompassing several continents, often with no knowledge of each other's existence, and a taste of how expansive the discipline of sociology and social anthropology are. The book will be of enormous value not just to those interested in the fields of Sociology, Social Anthropology and Ethnography, but also those with an interest in History, Philosophy, Comparative Religion and Cultural Studies. Please note: This title is co-published with Social Science Press, New Delhi. Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

"What the future fortunes of Gramsci's] writings will be, we cannot know. However, his permanence is already sufficiently sure, and justifies the historical study of his international reception. The present collection of studies is an indispensable foundation for this." --Eric Hobsbawm, from the preface

Antonio Gramsci is a giant of Marxian thought and one of the world's greatest cultural critics. Antonio A. Santucci is perhaps the world's preeminent Gramsci scholar. Monthly Review Press is proud to publish, for the first time in English, Santucci's masterful intellectual biography of the great Sardinian scholar and revolutionary.

Gramscian terms such as "civil society" and "hegemony" are much used in everyday political discourse. Santucci warns us, however, that these words have been appropriated by both radicals and conservatives for contemporary and often self-serving ends that often have nothing to do with Gramsci's purposes in developing them. Rather what we must do, and what Santucci illustrates time and again in his dissection of Gramsci's writings, is absorb Gramsci's methods. These can be summed up as the suspicion of "grand explanatory schemes," the unity of theory and practice, and a focus on the details of everyday life. With respect to the last of these, Joseph Buttigieg says in his "Nota" "Gramsci did not set out to explain historical reality armed with some full-fledged concept, such as hegemony; rather, he examined the minutiae of concrete social, economic, cultural, and political relations as they are lived in by individuals in their specific historical circumstances and, gradually, he acquired an increasingly complex understanding of how hegemony operates in many diverse ways and under many aspects within the capillaries of society."

The rigor of Santucci's examination of Gramsci's life and work matches that of the seminal thought of the master himself. Readers will be enlightened and inspired by every page.

An updated edition of the classic study of the Industrial Revolution

The first and best, major treatment of the crucial years 1848-1875, a penetrating analysis of the rise of capitalism throught the world. In the 1860s a new word entered the economic and political vocabulary of the world: 'capitalism'. The global triumph of capitalism is the major theme of history in the decades after 1848. It was the triumph of a society which believed that economic growth rests on competitive private enterprise, on success in buying everything in the cheapest market (including labour) and selling it in the dearest. An economy so based, and therefore nestling naturally on the sound foundations of a bourgoisie composed of those whom energy, merit and intelligence had raised to their position and kept there, would - it was believed - not only create a world of suitably distributed material plenty but of ever-growing enlightenment, reason and human opportunity, an advance of the sciences and the arts, in brief a world of continuous and accelerating material and moral progress.

Prior to his death in 1978 Georges Haupt enjoyed a considerable reputation as a scholar of European socialism, but much of his best work was scattered in small periodicals. This 1986 volume brings together in translation a selection of some of his most important essays, centred around three major, interlocking, themes: analysis of the groups of early activists who formed labour and socialist parties; the structure and development of socialist ideology; and the interaction between theory, doctrine and external circumstance that Haupt considered the very essence of intellectual debate. The subjects discussed include the symbolic and exemplary role of the Commune, the place of international leading groups in early socialism, and, in two essays that bring the history of socialist ideological debate firmly into the world of major historical events, Lenin. Eric Hobsbawm has contributed an analytic preface to the volume, examining Haupt's particular contribution to the history of socialism.

Eric Hobsbawm traces with brilliant anlytical clarity the transformation brought about in evry sphere of European life by the Dual revolution - the 1789 French revolution and the Industrial Revolution that originated in Britain. This enthralling and original account highlights the significant sixty years when industrial capitalism established itself in Western Europe and when Europe established the domination over the rest of the world it was to hold for half a century.

Many of the traditions which we think of as very ancient in their origins were not in fact sanctioned by long usage over the centuries, but were invented comparatively recently. This book explores examples of this process of invention - the creation of Welsh and Scottish 'national culture'; the elaboration of British royal rituals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the origins of imperial rituals in British India and Africa; and the attempts by radical movements to develop counter-traditions of their own. It addresses the complex interaction of past and present, bringing together historians and anthropologists in a fascinating study of ritual and symbolism which poses new questions for the understanding of our history.

The splendid finale to Eric Hobsbawm's study of the nineteenth century, THE AGE OF EMPIRE covers the area of Western Imperialism and examines the forces that swept the world to the outbreak of World War One- and shaped modern society.

From 1955-65 the historian Eric Hobsbawm took the pseudonym 'Francis Newton' and wrote a monthly column for the New Statesman on jazz - music he had loved ever since discovering it as a boy in 1933 ('the year Adolf Hitler took power in Germany'). Hobsbawm's column led to his writing a critical history, The Jazz Scene (1959). This enhanced edition from 1993 adds later writings by Hobsbawm in which he meditates further 'on why jazz is not only a marvellous noise but a central concern for anyone concerned with twentieth-century society and the twentieth-century arts.' 'All the greats are covered in passing (Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday), while further space is given to Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Thelonious Monk, Mahalia Jackson, and Sidney Bechet ... Perhaps Hobsbawm's tastiest comments are about the business side and work ethics, where his historian's eye strips the jazz scene down to its commercial spine.' Kirkus Reviews

I remain in the curious position of disliking, distrusting, disapproving and fearing nationalism wherever it exists . . . but recognising its enormous force, which must be harnessed for progress if possible. In the last two decades the uses of the term 'nationalism' has increased steeply with the rising tide of nationalist parties. In this collection of historian Eric Hobsbawm's writing on nationalism, we see some of the critical historical insights he brings to bear on this contentious subject, which is more than ever relevant as we stand on the doorstep of an age when the internet and the globalisation of capital threaten to blow away many national boundaries while, as a reaction, nationalism seems to re-emerge with renewed strength. More than any other historian of our time, Hobsbawm took great care to seriously consider these movements, and never to decry nationalism and patriotism as simply absurd. The clarity of his insight is as vital today as it was in his lifetime: On Nationalism is an essential work for anyone who wants to understand the phenomenon.

Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012) wrote that Latin America was the only region of the world outside Europe which he felt he knew well and where he felt entirely at home. He claimed this was because it was the only part of the Third World whose two principal languages, Spanish and Portuguese, were within his reach. But he was also, of course, attracted by the potential for social revolution in Latin America. After the triumph of Fidel Castro in Cuba in January 1959, and even more after the defeat of the American attempt to overthrow him at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961, 'there was not an intellectual in Europe or the USA', he wrote, 'who was not under the spell of Latin America, a continent apparently bubbling with the lava of social revolutions'. 'The Third World brought the hope of revolution back to the First in the 1960s'. The two great international inspirations were Cuba and Vietnam, 'triumphs not only of revolution, but of Davids against Goliaths, of the weak against the all-powerful'.

I remain in the curious position of disliking, distrusting, disapproving and fearing nationalism wherever it exists . . . but recognising its enormous force, which must be harnessed for progress if possible. In the last two decades the uses of the term 'nationalism' has increased steeply with the rising tide of nationalist parties. In this collection of historian Eric Hobsbawm's writing on nationalism, we see some of the critical historical insights he brings to bear on this contentious subject, which is more than ever relevant as we stand on the doorstep of an age when the internet and the globalisation of capital threaten to blow away many national boundaries while, as a reaction, nationalism seems to re-emerge with renewed strength. More than any other historian of our time, Hobsbawm took great care to seriously consider these movements, and never to decry nationalism and patriotism as simply absurd. The clarity of his insight is as vital today as it was in his lifetime: On Nationalism is an essential work for anyone who wants to understand the phenomenon.

Social agitation is as essential a part of public life today as it has ever been. In Eric Hobsbawm's masterful study, Primitive Rebels, he shines a light on the origins of contemporary rebellion: Robin Hood, secret societies, revolutionary peasants, Mafiosi, Spanish Civil War anarchy, pre-industrial mobs and riots - all of which have fed in to our notions of dissent in the modern world. Coining now familiar terms such as 'social banditry', Primitive Rebels shows how Hobsbawm was decades ahead of his time, and his insightful analysis of the history of social movements is critical to our understanding of movements such as UK Uncut, Black Lives Matter and the growing international resistance to Donald Trump's presidency. Reissued with a new introduction by Owen Jones, Primitive Rebels is the perfect guide to the revolutions that shaped western civilisation, and the bandits, reformers and anarchists who have fought to change the world.

THE AGE OF EXTREMES is eminent historian Eric Hobsbawm's personal vision of the twentieth century. Remarkable in its scope, and breathtaking in its depth of knowledge, this immensely rewarding book reviews the uniquely destructive and creative nature of the troubled twentieth century and makes challenging predicitions for the future.

Born in 1917, the year of the Russian Revolution, the eighty-five years of Eric Hobsbawm's life are backdropped by an endless litany of wars, revolutions and counter-revolutions. He has led a remarkably fulfilling and long life; historian and intellectual, fluent in five languages, a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, until it dissolved itself, and writer of countless volumes of history. He has personally witnessed some of the critical events of our century from Hitler's rise to power in Berlin to the fall of the Berlin wall. Hobsbawm has kept his eyes and ears open for eighty-five years, and has been constantly committed to understanding the 'interesting times' (as the Chinese curse puts it) through which he has lived. His autobiography is one passionate cosmopolitan Jew's account of his travels through that past which is another country, where they do things differently, and how it became the world we now live in.
 

This magisterial volume follows the death of ancient traditions, the triumph of new classes, and the emergence of new technologies, sciences, and ideologies, with vast intellectual daring and aphoristic elegance. Part of Eric Hobsbawm's epic four-volume history of the modern world, along with The Age of Capitalism, The Age of Empire, and The Age of Extremes.

The bicentenary of the French Revolution has been dominated by those who do not like the French Revolution or its heritage. This book deals with a surprisingly neglected subject: the history, not of the revolution itself, but of its reception and interpretation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A Critical assumption of the book is that while it is necessary and inevitable that historians write out of the history of their own times, those who write only out of their own times cannot understand the past and what came out of it. The recent historiographical reaction against the centrality of the Revolution reflects the politics of those contemporary historians for whom progress and revolutionary democracy are dangerous concepts. Their reinterpretations, Hobsbawm argues, are misguided. The Revolution transformed the world permanently and, as recent events in Eastern Europe emphasize, introduced ideas that continue to transform it. 'The French Revolution', writes Hobsbawm, ' gave peoples the sense that history could be changed by their action ... [and] demonstrated the power of the common people in a manner which no subsequent government has ever allowed itself to forget.' Echoes of the Marseillaise is a stimulating mix of historiography and political analysis, a much-needed epilogue of clarity and reason to a muddled bicentenary.

The topics covered in this book can be divided into four broad groups: studies of labour conditions up to the middle of the nineteenth century; studies in the 'new trade unionism' of 1889 to 1914; studies in the late nineteenth-century revival of Socialism in Britain; and more general topics covering a wider chronological span. The common factor in this wide-ranging work is that, unlike much other work of labour history, it concentrates on the working classes as such, and on the economic and technical conditions which allowed labour movements to be effective or which prevented their effectiveness. This work is notable not only for its clarity and incisiveness, but also for the richness and variety of the material, which ranges from Marx to Methodism and from labour traditions to the machine breakers.

In this collection of illuminating, incisive and thought-provoking essays, Eric Hobsbawm examines every aspect of the issues that have inspired the greatest debate - not only among politicians, academics and commentators but among all of us - in recent years: that is, the effects of globalisation, the plight of democracy and the threat of terrorism. As we are only too aware, all of these have the power to affect our daily lives, from the state of our economies to the fear of murderous bomb attacks in our cities. Hobsbawm discusses war and peace in our lifetime, problems of public order, anarchy and terrorism, nationalism and the changing nature of the nation-state, and the future prospects for democracy, setting out the historical background and the lessons it can offer us. Above all, he turns his piercing gaze to the Middle East and Western imperialism. Engaging, erudite and demonstrating his characteristically firm grasp of the facts and statistics, Hobsbawm's essays are indispensable to our understanding of the world we live in.

Recent years have seen a remarkable growth of interest in revolution and social upheaval. This collection of essays by distinguished historian and long-standing Marxist Eric Hobsbawm is a commentary and critical retrospective on the revolutionary movements and ideas that dominated the twentieth century, and which remain of crucial contemporary relevance. The essays here explore a broad range of related topics including the history of communism, the influence of marxism, insurrection, military coups and guerrilla warfare, and the role of intellectuals. This updated edition presents new thoughts on anti-communist polemics and the Spanish Civil War. Written with clarity and masterly assurance, Eric Hobsbawm's essays are indispensable for a true understanding both of twentieth-century history and of the pattern of events today.

In this book, Eric Hobsbawm chronicles the events and trends that led to the triumph of private enterprise and its exponents in the years between 1848 and 1875. Along with Hobsbawm's other volumes, this book constitutes and intellectual key to the origins of the world in which we now live.

This collection of 26 essays range over the history of working men and women between the late 18th century and the present day, and brings back into print a selection of this celebrated historian's pioneering studies into labour history, together with more recent reflections previously unpublished in book form.
Eric Hobsbawm's penetrating essays on labour history and social protest opened up a new field of study and set standards of wide-ranging, evocative, incisive analysis. Essays in this collection include the formation of the British working class; labour custom and traditions; the political radicalism of 19th century shoemakers; male and female images in revolutionary movements; revolution and sex; peasants and politics; and the common-sense of Tom Paine. More recent essays include meditations on the May Day holiday; the Vietnam War; socialism and the avantgarde; Mario Puzo, the Mafia and the Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano; and the cultural consequences of Christopher Columbus.
Throughout these essays runs a passionate concern for the lives and struggles of ordinary men and women - uncommon people, all of them.
 

On the Edge of the New Century is the sequel to Eric Hobsbawm's The Age of Extremes, a book of serious and challenging historical analysis that became a worldwide bestseller, now in paperback. Hobsbawm's latest book continues his magisterial (The New York Times Book Review) analysis of the twentieth century, and asks crucial questions about our inheritance from a century of conflict and its meaning for our future. Looking back over the last decade, Hobsbawm finds the distinction between internal and international conflicts and between the state of war and the state of peace disappearing as the crisis of the multiethnic state deepens and nations emerge from colonialism and nuclear terror. He assesses the impact that a popular global culture has had on every aspect of life, from happiness and social hierarchy to nutrition and the environment.