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lunes, 15 de octubre de 2012

A review wroted more than a decade ago of Hobsbawm’s “history” of the 20th century


The Left After Communism



  • The Stalinist historian Eric Hobsbawm has been the subject of a lot of fatuous eulogies since his death a few weeks ago. 
  • Ron Radosh asks whether an intellectual – a man of ideas — who dedicated his whole life to the defense of the most murderous regime on human record, and to lying in defense of that regime – can be a good historian. 
  • The question, if put right, is self-answering. 
  • Yet even worthy conservatives like Niall Ferguson apparently get it wrong. Hobsbawm may have been a brilliant writer and an intelligent man. 
  • Yet he was morally defective, and that particular flaw is fatal to a historian since in the end the reader must trust his judgments and depend on his integrity and respect for the truth. 
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