The New Century: In Conversation with Antonio Polito - Softcover

Teeming with ideas. (SUNDAY TRIBUNE)

The man is lucid to the point of visionary. (SUNDAY HERALD)

This excellent little book sees Hobsbawm conversing with his co-author about the state of the world today, and what historians might consider important 50 or 100 years hence. Hobsbawm's characteristic erudition and charm underwrite his bracingly provocative viewpoints. (GUARDIAN)

A bold little tour d'horizon (SUNDAY TELEGRAPH)

Its refreshingly sober perspective on contemporary trends gives it an interest that many more pretentious volumes lack ... Hobsbawm shows he possesses to an extraordinary degree the historian's gift of identifying what is old and what is genuinely new in the present time (INDEPENDENT)

Eric Hobsbawm's AGE OF EXTREMES was a remarkable phenomenon, a book of serious and challenging historical analysis that became a worldwide bestseller. Now, THE NEW CENTURY continues Hobsbawm's analysis of our twentieth century, asking crucial questions about our inheritance from the century of conflict and its meanings for the years to come. Looking back over the last decade to learn something of the new era, Hobsbawm finds the distinction between internal and international conflicts and between state of war and state of peace disappearing. He goes on to analyse the crisis of the multi-ethnic state and shows the distortions of history involved in the creation of its myths. He expresses his anxiety over the system of international relations between states that have so far ruled by colonialism and nuclear terror. Hobsbawm then assesses the impact that a popular global culture has had on every aspect of life, from happiness and social hierarchy to nutrition and the environment. Published this year in dozens of countries throughout the world, THE NEW CENTURY is a concise summary of the thinking of one of the pre-eminent historians.