Eric Hobsbawm: The Consolations of History

In this documentary, Anthony Wilks traces the connections between the events of Eric Hobsbawm’s life and the history he told, from his teenage years in Germany and his communist membership, to the jazz clubs of 1950s Soho and the makings of New Labour, taking in Italian bandits, Peruvian peasant movements and the development of nationalism in the modern world, with help from the assiduous observations of MI5. The film features contributions from Frances Stonor Saunders, Richard J. Evans, John Foot, Stefan Collini, Marlene Hobsbawm and Donald Sassoon, as well as Hobsbawm himself in extensive archive footage.

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Read more in the LRB:

Hobsbawm on Weimar Germany: https://lrb.me/hobsbawmweimaryt
Hobsbawm on his days as a jazz critic: https://lrb.me/hobsbawmjazzyt
Hobsbawm on Hungary in 1956: https://lrb.me/hobsbawmhungaryt
Frances Stonor Saunders on Hobsbawm's MI5 files: https://lrb.me/hobsbawmmi5filesyt
Perry Anderson on 'The Age of' series: https://lrb.me/andersonhobsbawmyt

Audio in the film courtesy of the Hay Festival. Find more here: https://www.hayfestival.com/hayplayer/

Turkish subtitles kindly provided by Dr. Ugur Pece of Lehigh University.

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