[lit-ideas] Re: Eric Hobsbawm dies, aged 95
- From: cblitid@xxxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2012 12:11:36 +0200
On 3-Oct-12, at 5:27 PM, Donal McEvoy wrote:
"Most startlingly, Hobsbawm gave Stalin the credit for the post war
“miracles” experienced in the West. Soviet communism, he argued, had
provided its antagonist “with the incentive — fear — to reform
itself” and “by establishing the popularity of economic planning,
furnished it with some of the procedures for its reform.” In a
television interview, Hobsbawm was asked whether, for such an
accomplishment to take place, “the loss of fifteen, twenty million
people might have been justified?”
“Yes”, replied Hobsbawm."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9579079/Eric-Hobsbawm.html
Thanks for this, Donal.
In a recent conversation about verb tenses, my interlocutor decried
constructions such as that 'might have been justified?' Why did the
interviewer not ask simply and straightforwardly, 'Were the deaths of
fifteen to twenty million people justified?' (Would Hobsbawm's answer
have been different?)
The link Donal provides leads to further comment on Hobsbawm.
Michael Burleigh finds Hobsbawm "deceitful" and his eminence an
indication of " the bovine complacency with which, since Mrs Thatcher,
the Conservatives have allowed such dubious figures licence to
dominate the soft culture of the BBC and our universities."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9579092/Eric-Hobsbawm-A-believer-in-the-Red-utopia-to-the-very-end.html#
Allan Massie finds Hobsbawm "more complicated and ... admirable than
Michael Burleigh believes" and recommends Hobsbawm's autobiography
INTERESTING TIMES as "a good starting point for anyone who wants to
understand him – or indeed to understand the ideological turmoil and
complexity of the 20th century."
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/allanmassie/100066734/understanding-eric-hobsbawm/
Chris Bruce
Kiel, Germany
--
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
