figizs of tlobsbawm The Age of Revolution, Mentor, 1962, $5.95; The Age of Capital, Meridian, 1979, $4.95; The Age of Empire, Pantheon, 1987, $22.95, paperback; Vintage, $12.95. It was in the 19th century, the long or historian’s 19th from 1789 to 1914, that modem politics, economics and social relations destroyed lifestyles that had endured for millennia. Today there is no exact turning back, as became clear to people fighting the rise of capitalism, industrialism, alienation and nationalism. But the profound social changes that took place in one century indicate the great potential for future change, perhaps for the better if we make it so. Eric Hobsbawm is a radical modem left activist, an elder in the movement, unquenchably controversial and analytically sharp. He uncovers a long 19th that most people in the 20th century could never imagine. He is interested in how all aspects of the 19th century hang together: ideology, social relations, science, art, economics and politics. His method is systematic, thought-provoking, deeply reflective, and only poorly reflected in these brief summaries. During The Age of Revolution (1789-1848), the following English words took their modem meaning: industry, industrialist, factory, middle class, working class, capitalism, socialism, aristocracy, railway, liberal, conservative, nationality, scientist, engineer, proletariat, economic crisis, journalism, strike, and pauperism. In the greatest and quickest transformations in human history since ancient times the bourgeoisie, a conquering business class ironically advocating freedom, dominated the new industrial workplace. Their success, depending on the defeat of feudalism and absolute monarchy, was made by the ideological force of the French revolution, and the destmctive force of the industrial revolution. Industrialism began in Britain, but this was because the British were technically superior. They were leagues behind the French, whose support for science (especially after the revolution), through unique institutions like the Ecole Polytechnique, contrasted sharply with Britain’s suspicion of it. The Right: French rebels inspired revolution across Europe throughout the first half ofthe 19th century. Punch, 1848. French produced far more sophisticated technology, such as the programmable Jacquard Loom (1804). The Germans also had advanced technical training through the Bergakademie. English education was a joke: those in industry who were educated came from Scotland. The technical inventions of the Industrial Revolution were very modest; the types of devices inventive artisans had produced in workshops for centuries. What spurred the industrial revolution was growth in a market that had already been profitable without technical change: cotton. Cotton came from British colonies, much of it from the Southern US - this was the reason the British were on the South’s side in the civil war. If the British could sell goods freely in the US, they would buy the south’s cotton, but this meant the north couldn’t protect its industries from imports. The markets for Britain's finished cotton goods were also mostly overseas. It was the British navy that made monopoly of source and supply possible. It forced, for the first time in history, the east to import more from the west Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2 Page 43
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