Rating: 
Summary: Superior history
Review: A superior historian who shows a more broad and balanced analysis than the smug conservative views of one like Paul Johnson. Though Johnson can indeed "turn a phrase" better than Hobsbawn, this does not make Johnson a better historian, but only reveals his journalistic roots--i.e., Johnson is a master propogandist. Hobsbawm keeps his communistic ideology under control much better than Johnson does his conservatism--indeed, Johnson doesn't even try for any kind of "objectivity," gleefully engaging in hack-and slash polemics. Hobsbawm's sober historical judgment compared to Johnson flashy style is like comparing Solomon to Heraldo Rivera--the latter gets the "ratings" but the former is a vastly greater scholar.
Rating:
Summary: Gives you the perspective
Review: Anyone who is interested in the 20th century history must read this book as the first step towards understanding this age of EXTREMES.If it is the details that attracts you, you can always look for other sources. However, if you make this one your guide-light, it will be much easier to figure out the facts.
Rating: 
Summary: Extremely disappointing survey
Review: Eric Hobsbawm's new book 'Age of Extremes: the Short Twentieth Century' has won widespread acclaim. His earlier books, such as 'Labouring Men', 'The Age of Revolution (1789-1848)' and 'Industry and Empire', made solid contributions to the history of the 19th and 20th centuries without attracting such attention. But his new book has won the Lionel Gelber Prize for the year's outstanding book in the field of international relations. It is one of The Spectator's Books of the Year, and it is massively displayed in major bookshops. Why all this publicity? Because his main theme now is different from that of his earlier books. It is also a very fashionable theme: the end of ideology. He brilliantly charts capitalism's failures, but he wrongly sees it as unstoppable. In his book, he divides the century into three parts: 1914-1945 a landscape of disaster, 1945-1973 a golden age of peace and plenty, and 1973-1991 a slide towards the abyss. To see no progress between 1914 and 1945 overlooks the Soviet Union's achievements and the other struggles, especially China's and Spain's against fascist aggression. In portraying 1945-1973 as a golden age of peace, he ignores the USA's wars against China, Korea and Vietnam, the many British, French and Dutch colonial wars and Israel's three Middle Eastern wars. Further, he ignored the internal struggles led by the working class inside countries, struggles that ended colonialism and won reforms after the Second World War. And he pictures the period from 1973 to 1991 as dominated by the slow collapse of the Soviet Union, while capitalism got more and more out of control. Hobsbawm, who was a member of the deceased Communist Party of Great Britain, saw the Soviet Union as the only barrier to the triumph of capitalism. When the Soviet Union collapsed, so too, in his view, did all prospects of resisting capitalism: hope died with the Soviet Union. But his outlook is unnecessarily pessimistic. Are there really no other forces fighting capitalism? There are, but Hobsbawm fails to recognise and understand them. Workers' nationalism and the trade unions are both hostile to capitalism. The workers of Europe, especially now those of France, Italy and Belgium, are in ferment, struggling for their national independence against the capitalist ramp of Economic and Monetary Union. There is deep-seated hatred of, and struggle against, capitalism in the working class of every country, born of the necessities of the daily struggle against the employer. Struggles are arising again in Britain. There are good grounds for optimism. This book is brilliantly expressed, but it is dispirited in content and ideas, and demoralising in effect. And a cry of despair, however eloquent, is not a good guide to action.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book! Many Insights!
Review: Even if you dont like the conclusions drawn by Mr. Hobsbawm, this book leaves you thinking about how history (mankind) made itself so far... Really a great title to learn a little more about history.
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Summary: The Age of Extreme
Review: Excellent! The best history of our century there is.
Rating:
Summary: Proves that history is not over
Review: Fukuyama claimed that with the fall of the Eastern Block, history was over. Wrong, says Hobsbavn - only an epoch has ended. The short twentieth century, the age dominated by war. Hobsbavn revolutionised history by refusing to adhere to the somewhat artificial restraint of centuries. Instead he has split up the ninetenth and twentieth centuries in four distinct epochs. And does it work! This was his fourth book on the subject, and it created quite a stir when it came out.
In retrospect it seems obvious to say that up until 1991 we lived in an age that were stillsuffering from the effects of the first world war. Hobsbawn even claims that the first world war did not really end until 1991. Now we have entered an era which is ruled by other historical processes.
Hobsbawn is a socialist, but he does not rub it in, in this book at least. Rather, he, for me at least, comes out as a very clear thinker. He is not stuck in ideology, especially when he praises Ronald Reagan, or the northern European monarchies. His ideas about art during the age of extremes are interesting, but are bound to provoke; are the only operas of note during the twentieth century really just King Ubu and Peter Grimes?
Rating:
Summary: The marxist-leninist view of the 20th century
Review: Hobsbawm is a Stalin apologist. Read this from an interview with Michael Ignatief in the Times Literary Supplement in 1994. Hobsbawm explains why he still defends communism: HOBSBAWM: You didn't have the option. You see, either there was going to be a future or there wasn't going to be a future and this [the Communist Party] was the only thing that offered an acceptable future. IGNATIEFF: In 1934, millions of people are dying in the Soviet experiment. If you had known that, would it have made a difference to you at that time? To your commitment? To being a Communist? HOBSBAWM: This is the sort of academic question to which an answer is simply not possible...I don't actually know that it has any bearing on the history that I have written. If I were to give you a retrospective answer which is not the answer of a historian, I would have said, 'Probably not.' IGNATIEFF: Why? HOBSBAWM: Because in a period in which, as you might imagine, mass murder and mass suffering are absolutely universal, the chance of a new world being born in great suffering would still have been worth backing. Now the point is, looking back as an historian, I would say that the sacrifices made by the Russian people were probably only marginally worthwhile. The sacrifices were enormous; they were excessive by almost any standard and excessively great. But I'm looking back at it now and I'm saying that because it turns out that the Soviet Union was not the beginning of the world revolution. Had it been, I'm not sure. IGNATIEFF: What that comes down to is saying that had the radiant tomorrow actually been created, the loss of fifteen, twenty million people might have been justified? HOBSBAWM: Yes.
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Summary: Interesting and readable, but flawed as well
Review: Hobsbawm presents his own original vision of twentieth century history, in a very interesting and readable manner. The book is impossible to put down, and covers a sweeping era of human history. But Hobsbawm's account contained several errors. Foremost,he ascribes too much emphasis to ideology, surprising for a quasi-Marxist who should be more focused on material factors. At least he shows a grudging respect for capitalism,which hasnt really proven itself as the right path. Despite the mistake, it should be read, even by those who disagree, for he supports his arguments quite well.
Rating: 
Summary: Not up to the standards of the other three
Review: Hobsbawm steps outside his area of expertise here (the 19th Century) and it shows. The relative lack of footnotes and references (compared to the earlier three books in the series) attests to that. Also, although this isn't the same scholarly work as the first three books, the writing style is just as recondite -- there are better, easier ways to get at the history of the 20th Century! His account of the role of the Soviet Union merits reading, if only because Hobsbawm is a Marxist, and so he has a lot of sympathy for the Soviets. With the Cold War over and the USSR dead, it's actually quite interesting to read viewpoints from the other side.
Rating:
Summary: Eye-opening even if you don't share Hobsbawm's conclusions
Review: Hobsbawm was the first historian to fashion the concept of the "Short 20th Century" as the ideological struggle touched off as a consequence of the First World War and ending with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Most of the other histories of the 20th Century -- either global or European -- have accepted this framework, with good reason. In "Age of Extremes," Prof. Hobsbawm makes sense of an often-chaotic period in world history. The title is especially apt, as the main movements in the struggle were driven by extreme manifestations of all kinds of ideology, on both the right (Nazi-fascism, militarism, capitalism) and on the left (Communism). While I do not share all of Hobsbawm's opinions and conclusions, his insights are a great starting point for understanding the turbulence of the 20th Century. His interpretation is also refreshingly different from the post-Cold War triumphalism of some other authors. He also does not ignore the strivings and yearnings of emerging nations that did not play a leading role in the ideological struggles of the great powers. The tone of this material suggests that these groups may play a more central role in the drama of the new century. As we look to the 21st Century with some uncertainty (after the events of Sept. 11), Hobsbawm's book is a good way to find out how we got to this point in history.
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