Join Emile Chabal and Kate Bugos to discuss Chabal’s new intellectual biography of Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Hobsbawm: The Life of a Revolutionary Historian.

Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) was one of the foremost European intellectuals of the twentieth century. He published hundreds of articles on modern history and culture, and his books became canonical works and bestsellers on both sides of the Atlantic. His crystal-clear writing, vast erudition, and ability to make his Marxist analysis digestible to a wide audience brought him worldwide renown.

Yet Hobsbawm was no academic hermit. Through his globetrotting journalism, he was embedded in an extraordinary web of politicians, activists, and fellow intellectuals across Europe, South Asia, and the Americas, including Manmohan Singh, Che Guevara, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Fernand Braudel, E. P. Thompson, Arno Mayer, and Salvador Allende. Emile Chabal traces the origins of Hobsbawm’s ideas and most famous writings by exploring his scholarly foundations, delving deep into the archives to uncover hidden links and unexpected conversations that shaped his pathbreaking work.

Going well beyond the Ages series of modern history books for which Hobsbawm is best known, Chabal offers the first substantial interpretation of Hobsbawm’s entire body of writing and gives us unique insights into the generations of Marxist writers with whom Hobsbawm was in conversation—authors whose work continues to shape political debates globally.

Our speakers:

Emile Chabal is Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Edinburgh. He has authored and edited several books, including A Divided Republic: Nation, State, and Citizenship in Contemporary France and States of Ignorance: Governing Irregular Migrants in Western Europe. His writing has appeared in such publications as Foreign Policy, The Hindu, the Times Literary Supplement, Jacobin, and Libération.

Kate Bugos is a feminist labour historian and writer. Her research focuses on women and work in the early 20th century. Her work has appeared in Tribune, The Bookseller, New International, and Review31.

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Doors Open at 6:45pm, Event Starts 7:00.