On History brings together his brilliant and challenging reflections on the uses, and abuses, of history. Ranging from considerations of "history from below" and the "progress" of history to recent debate on the relevance of studying history and the responsibility of the historian, On History reflects Hobsbawm's lifelong concern with the relations between past, present, and future.
Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012) was born in Egypt in 1917 and educated in Austria, Germany, and England. He taught at Birkbeck College, the University of London, and the New School for Social Research in New York. He is the author of The Age of Revolution, The Age of Capital, The Age of Empire, and The Age of Extremes as well as On History, Uncommon People, Industry and Empire, Bandits, On the Edge of the New Century, Revolutionaries, On Empire, Fractured Times, and his memoir Interesting Times (The New Press).