Interesting Times

By Eric Hobsbawm,

Book cover of Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life

Book description

Eric Hobsbawm has been widely acclaimed as one of the greatest living historians. Called "a lyrical, pungent, and provocative memoir" by Publishers Weekly, Interesting Times offers a personal tour through what Hobsbawm terms "the most extraordinary and terrible century in human history." The book takes us from his birth in…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Interesting Times as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Hobsbawm was both one of the most influential professional historians of the twentieth century and a lifelong communist. As a historian, Hobsbawm had no illusions about the failures of twentieth-century communist regimes. His life story illustrates how a commitment to communism entailed far more than an endorsement of Stalin or the Soviet Union. A schoolboy in Berlin when the Nazis came to power, Hobsbawm, associated communism with antifascism. In his autobiography, he offers not a confession or a justification for his membership in the communist party, but an effort to explain what he calls the “wars of secular religion” that…

From Lisa's list on world communism.

If you love Interesting Times...

Ad

Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest By Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

Want books like Interesting Times?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Interesting Times.

Browse books like Interesting Times

Book cover of The Communist Manifesto
Book cover of Spider Eaters: A Memoir
Book cover of To Change the World: My Years in Cuba

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,585

readers submitted
so far, will you?

Ad

📚 If you like Interesting Times, you might also like...

Book cover of A Last Survivor of the Orphan Trains: A Memoir

A Last Survivor of the Orphan Trains By Victoria Golden, William Walters,

Four years old and homeless, William Walters boarded one of the last American Orphan Trains in 1930 and embarked on an astonishing quest through nine decades of U.S. and world history.

For 75 years, the Orphan Trains had transported 250,000 children from the streets and orphanages of the East Coast…

Book cover of The Model Spy: Based on the True Story of Toto Koopman’s World War II Ventures

The Model Spy By Maryka Biaggio,

The Model Spy is based on the true story of Toto Koopman, who spied for the Allies and Italian Resistance during World War II.

Largely unknown today, Toto was arguably the first woman to spy for the British Intelligence Service. Operating in the hotbed of Mussolini's Italy, she courted danger…

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in the Soviet Union, Berlin, and Havana Cuba?

The Soviet Union 380 books
Berlin 110 books
Havana Cuba 23 books