The Age of EJH
Perry Anderson
Interesting Times: A 20th-Century Life by Eric Hobsbawm | Allen Lane, 448 pp, £20.00
"In this generally disappointing field, Eric Hobsbawm has entered the lists with a work he invites us to read as the 'flip side' of Age of Extremes, his great history of the 20th century: 'not world history illustrated by the experiences of an individual, but world history shaping that experience' - and the life-choices it offered him. Published at the age of 85, in its energy and trenchancy Interesting Times could have been written at 40. Its qualities are such, in fact, that it is almost impossible to read without being drawn back to his work as a historian, so many insights does it offer, casually or deliberately, about what he has achieved as a whole. We are dealing with a kind of fifth volume, in more personal register, of a continuous project. This one could be called simply 'The Age of EJH'."
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n19/ande01_.html