Revolutionaries

Rating:
Summary: Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will
Review: This is a collection of Hobsbawm's essays on the subject(s), originally published at the height of the New Left. It's marked by its sober assessment of the real problems facing those who would remake society, despite (or perhaps because of?) the author's clear sympathies for such a project and for the people who attempted it.

The essay on Vietnam (published in 1965 just as the United States was first committing troops in large numbers), which with dialectical precision lays out the reasons why the defeat of the United States was inevitable, is alone worth the purchase price.

Rating:
Summary: Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will
Review: This is a collection of Hobsbawm's essays on the subject(s), originally published at the height of the New Left. It's marked by its sober assessment of the real problems facing those who would remake society, despite (or perhaps because of?) the author's clear sympathies for such a project and for the people who attempted it.

The essay on Vietnam (published in 1965 just as the United States was first committing troops in large numbers), which with dialectical precision lays out the reasons why the defeat of the United States was inevitable, is alone worth the purchase price.